INTERDENOMINATIONAL,    BUT    STRICTI.'V 
EVANGELICAI,  " 


■-''^tlC 


SEP    1 


V^'^OiOG/fJi  ^}^^. 


Rummer 

^ermons 


iprcacbcJ  in 


Zcwt    Evangel, 

36roa^^vav;  an^  56tb  St., 
■Rcw  Jljorl?  Cits. 


Summer  of  1902. 


Published  by  Francis  E.  Fitch.  47  Broad  Street,  New  York  City. 


m<  arc  able  to  publlsb  "  Souvenir  Summer  Sermons" 
throuflb  tbe  Generosity  of  mr.  Trancis  fl.  Palmer. 


; 


CONTENTS. 

1.  MountaLin-Moving  Faith. 

Rev.  F.  B.  Meyer,  D.  D.,  London,  England. 

2.  The  Lost  Bible. 

Rev.  P.  vS.  Henson,  D.  D. 

3.  The  Godhood  of  Jesus. 

Rev.  D.  D.  McLaurin,  D.  D. 

4.  From    Bethel  to  Bethel. 

Rev.  J.  Wilbur  Chapman,  D.  D. 

5.  A  Call  to  Personal  Service. 

Rev.  Wilton  Merle  Sisiith,  D.  D. 

6.  Winning  Souls. 

Rev.  John  BalCOLM  Shaw,  D.  D. 

7.  Supreme  Moments  in  Human   Life. 

Rev.  Geo.  C.  Lorimer,  D.  D. 

8.  Sowing  and  Reaping. 

Rev.  William  Chas.  Stinson,  D.  D. 

9.  The  Divine  Appeal  to  Man's  Will. 

Rev.  E.   E.  Chiveks,  ]).  D. 

to.  At  the  Door  of  the   Kingdom. 

Robert  E.  Speer. 

1 1.  Jesus.  Saving  from  Sins. 

Rev.  Chas.  L.  Mead. 

12.  The  Desert  and  the  Garden. 

Rev.  G.  Campbell  Morgan,  London.  Eng. 


€2'^' 


All  orders  for  this  Book  to  be  addressed  to 
Rev.  S.  Hartweil  Pratt,  tiS  West  S7th 
Street,  New  York  City,  until  November  ro, 
after  that   date   to  47   Broad   Street. 


) 


nDountaiivflDovincj  jfaitb. 

IRev.  3f.  JB.  mc^cv,  D.  2)., 

XonDon,  JEnglanD. 


Y 


Mark  xi  :  22-24. 

HnJ»  3e8U6  answering  sa'.tb  unto  tbcm,  Ibavc  faitb  in  O06. 
3For  >-eril?  H  gav  unto  ?ou,  ^bat  wbosocvcr  sball  sa^ 
unto  tbis  mountain,  36e  tbou  rcmovc^,  an^  be  tbcu  cast 
into  tbc  sea ;  anb  sball  not  6oubt  in  bis  bcart,  but  sball 
believe  tbat  tbosc  tbings  wbicb  be  saitb  sball  come  to 
pass;  be  sball  bave  wbatsoever  be  saitb.  Xlberetore  IF 
sas  unto  'ecu,  TOUbat  tbings  soever  ije  Besire,  wben  i^c 
prav,  believe  tbat  se  receive  tbcm,  an6  y^c  sball  bave 
tbem." 

■OU  are  all  fa- 
miliar with  the 
incident  to 
which  this  pas- 
sage  refers. 
On  the  morning  of 
this  particular  day  the 
Saviour  left  Bethany 
and  for  some  reason 
he  did  so  breakfastless. 
Where  was  Martha  ? 
Where  was  Mary  ? 
Where  was  Lazarus,  that  they  permitted 
Him  to  leave  their  home  without  food? 
The  reason  probably  is  that  He  had  stolen 
out  very  early  indeed  for  prayer — or  may, 
perhaps,  have  been  engaged  in  prayer  all 
night— so  that  nobody  heard  Him  leave 
the  house. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  as  He  proceeded  on 
His  way  to  Jerusalem  He  saw  the  fig  tree; 
and  being  hungry,  He  sought  fruit,  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  tree  justifying  Him  in  ex- 

Pastor  of  Christ  Church,  formerly  Reverend  Newman  Hall's,  London 

England.     The  Lincoln  Tower  was  contributed  to 

by   American   friends. 


pecting  some,  as  the  fruit  comes  before  the 
leaves. 

But  He  found  none  there;  and  then,  in 
order  that  He  might  teach  a  great  spiritual 
lesson.  He  cursed  the  tree.  And  that  tree 
has  been  full  of  lessons  to  all  the  centuries 
since. 

Next  morning,  as  He  passed  the  place 
again  with  His  disciples,  Peter's  quick  eye 
saw  what  had  happened,  and  he  called  the 
Lord's  attention  to  the  tree.  He,  instead 
of  deducing  the  obvious  lesson  of  the  curse 
of  God  upon  spiritual  barrenness  or  sterili- 
ty, diverged  from  it  and  deduced  another, 
which  to  me  is  wonderful  in  depth  and 
strength. 

What  He  really  said  was  this:  You  see 
that  tree ;  now,  if  you  can  reckon  on  God  as 
I  did,  you  may  not  only  have  the  power 
that  blighted  that  tree,  but  whenever  mount- 
ains block  you  in  you  may  move  mountains. 

Evidently,  Jesus  in  His  human  life  did  not 
work  miracles  by  His  divine  attributes  of 
omnipotence.  He  put  that  aside  and  pre- 
fered  to  live  a  purely  human  life,  using  pure 
faith  in  God — the  faith  that  we  can  have 
through  the  Holy  Ghost  that  came  at  Pen- 
tecost. 

"Plave  faith  in  God!"  What  did  those 
words  mean? 

I  shall  never  forget  the  occasion  when 
in  my  church,  Hudson  Taylor,  the  head  of 
the  China  Inland  Mission,  stood  up  and 
spoke  from  these  words  as  a  text.  I  did 
not  know  all  the  meaning  that  there  was  in 
them  for  the  speaker,  but  I  remember  that 
he  said  the  words  were  to  be  read  as  saying 
"Count  on  God,"  "Reckon  on  God's  faith- 
fulness"— not  on  your  faith  in  God,  but 
upon  God's  faithfulness  to  you. 

Afterwards  I  heard  something  of  his  life 
story.  When  quite  a  young  man  he  had 
heard  God  say  to  him,  "I  am  going  to  evan- 
gelize inland  China,  and  if  you  are  willing  to 
go  there  with  Me,  I  will  do  the  work 
through  you."  And  he  determined  to 
obey  the  call,  and  so  began  to  reckon  on 
God's  faithfulness,  with  results  that  are 
known  to  all  the  world. 

Jesus  in  His  earthly  life  divested  Him- 
self of  His  omnipotence,  which  He  forbore 
to  use  that  He  might  lead  such  a  life  as 
vours  and  mine  might  be,  and  that  He  might 
begin  and  lead  the  life  of  faith  as  you  and 
I  can.  He  is  now  glorified  with  the  glory 
He  had  before  the  world  was  made,  and  has 
all  power  in  Heaven  and  on  earth  delivered 
to  Him.  So  that  He  has  the  human  power 
of  the  Son  and  the  divine  power  of  God 
over  all,  blessed  forever. 


You  will  note  that  He  says  in  effect  that 
all  our  lives  are  limited  by  mountain  ranges. 
These  great  mountains,  how  they  tower  up 
in  our  daily  lives  ! 

You,  dear  woman,  are  hemmed  in  by  them 
in  your  home;  you,  man  of  business,  see 
them  in  the  affairs  of  this  life ;  and  you^ 
Christian  worker  in  the  slums  of  New  York, 
are  sequestered  and  shut  in  by  high  moun- 
tains. These  shut  out  the  great  world  be- 
hind high  ramparts,  and  confine,  restrain 
and  narrow  the  activities  of  your  life. 

^^'hat  are  these  mountains  ? 

Here  is  one  man  hemmed  in  by  guilt. 
His  sins  seem  to  rise  up  before  him  into 
the  very  sky,  and  in  overhanging  crags  and 
precipices  almost  threaten  to  crush  him. 

Another  is  clogged  by  the  outcome  or 
result  of  some  early  sin.  He  repented  long 
ago,  but  yet  to-day  the  results  of  thati 
wrongdoing  loom  up  high  before  him. 

Another  has  great  anxieties  confronting 
him,  like  the  mountains  of  Switzerland, 
that  bar  the  way  to  the  smiling,  sunny  plains 
of  Umbria  in  Italy ;  only  for  him  there  seems 
no  way  either  of  crossing  his  Alps  or  of 
tunneling  through  them. 

Others  have  to  face  the  approach  of  some 
disease,  either  for  themselves  or  some  one 
dear  to  them — consumption,  cancer  or  some 
such  thing. 

How  many  of  you,  if  I  could  only  know 
your  hearts,  I  should  find  to  be  penned  in 
and  limited  by  mountains  of  one  kind  or 
another !  They  are  there  the  first  thing  in 
the  morning  and  the  last  thing  at  night. 
The}'  are  present  with  you  both  summer 
and  winter.  Other  things  change  or  pass 
away  but  these  mountains  are  continually 
in  your  sight. 

Xow  Jesus  says  that  it  is  possible  for 
mountains  like  those  to  be  moved.  And 
wherever  you  are  I  bring  you  glad  tidings 
of  great  joy — that  mountain  shall  become 
a  plain.  One  day  you  shall  look  for  it  and 
find  it  gone.  And  instead  of  its  rugged, 
massive  height  you  shall  see  the  green  past- 
ures, the  beautiful  rolling  land,  the  prairie, 
covered  with  beauty  and  fruitful  harvests. 

I  want  you  to  see  how  this  can  take  place. 
I  rejoice  to  speak  of  it  because  I  have  so 
often  in  my  own  life  seen  the  mountains  go. 

How  is  this  mountain-moving  done? 

First,  there  comes  a  blessed  invitation 
into  the  soul  that  it  is  not  the  will  of  God 
that  your  life  should  be  hemmed  in  by  moun- 
tains. This  is  said  in  the  Word  of  God  and 
corroborated  by  the  words  of  God ;  and  the 
more  you  pray  the  more  clearly  you  will  see 
that  the  mountain  is  not  an  essential  to  vour 


experience — not  meant  to  exist  continually 
for  you.  You  can  base  this  conviction  on 
the  words  of  promise — the  adamantine  in- 
vincible words  of  God  afford  solid  ground 
upon  which  the  soul  can  stand  with  both 
feet  and  from  which  it  can  hurl  forth  to 
the  mountains  the  words :  "Thou  shalt  re- 
move!" 

Therefore,  I  come  back  to  the  Bible.  I 
do  not  need  to  be  told  that  the  sea  is  salt; 
I  know  it :  I  have  only  to  dip  my  finger  into 
the  brine  and  to  taste  it.  C3r,  that  sugar  is 
sweet,  for  I  have  proved  it.  So  I  do  not 
need  to  study  books  of  evidence  that  the 
Bible  is  the  word  of  God :  There  is  a  quality 
in  it,  a  fire,  a  divinity.  And  just  as  the 
canon  of  Holy  Scripture  was  made  by  the 
church  of  old  times,  so  the  hemmed  in  soul 
that  reads  it  will  detect  quality  and  flavor 
and  power  that  make  it  different  from  all 
other  books  that  were  ever  written. 

Such  a  soul  can  read,  for  example,  "Cast- 
ing all  your  care  upon  Him,  for  He  careth 
for  you ;"  "your  Heavenly  Father  knoweth 
that  ye  have  need  of  all  these  things,"  and 
similar  passages  that  furnish  love  for  the 
heart  and  truth  for  the  mind.  Get  the  real- 
ization of  these  passages  into  your  heart 
and  the  conviction  will  be  wrought  in  your 
soul  that  God  never  meant  your  life  to  be 
always  shadowed  by  high  cliffs. 

Second,  you  begin  to  pray,  and  you  call 
to  mind  the  promise  of  Christ — "All  things 
whatsoever  ye  pray  and  ask  for,  believe  that 
ye  have  received  them,  and  ye  shall  have 
thenr'  (Mark  xi  :24,  r.  v.)  Then  you 
begin  to  pray.  But  mind  the  quality  of 
your  prayer.  I  want  to  put  emphasis  on 
that  point. 

There  is  a  sort  of  prayer  repeated  in  a 
kind  of  plaintive  and  despairing  way.  It 
has  been  prayed  so  often,  and  has  never 
been  answered,  that  those  who  offer  it  have 
little  hope  of  any  reply,  and  it  is  doubtful 
if  they  would  pray  at  all  were  it  not  that 
praying  is  the  only  thing  to  be  done.  This 
kind  of  prayer  has  a  note  of  hopelessness 
or  despair  in  it. 

There  is  another  sort  of  prayer  with  a 
note  of  faith  in  it :  in  which  the  soul  feels 
that — not  in  its  own  power — it  can  count 
on  God  to  be  faithful. 

I  have  met  many  people  who  are  always 
looking  at  their  faith,  and  they  say,  "I've 
got  so  little  faitli."  They  remind  me  of  an 
old  Scotch  lady  who  had  a  wide  reputation 
as  a  woman  of  faith.  A  minister  called  to 
see  her  and  said  he  had  come  because  he 
had  heard  her  spoken  of  as  a  woman  of 
great  faith.    Her  reply  was :  "No.  I  am  not 

6 


a  woman  of  great  faith.  I  am  a  woman  of 
little  faith  in  a  great  God."  That  is  it.  It 
is  a  happy  day  for  the  soul  when  it  ceases 
relying  on  its  faith  and  begins  trusting  in 
the  faithfulness  of  God  instead. 

Sometimes  the  woman  who  "touched  the 
hem  of  His  garment"  is  thought  of  as  hav- 
ing had  little  faith.  The  fact  is  that  she  had 
great  faith.  If  she  had  but  little  faith  she 
would  have  felt  it  necessary  to  take  hold  of 
His  garment  with  both  hands,  or  to  touch 
His  flesh  or  to  stop  Him  as  He  walked. 
But  her  faith  was  so  great  that  she  felt 
sure  the  merest  contact  with  His  garment 
would  be  sufficient  to  heal  her.  Just  so  the 
lightest  touch  of  the  faith  that  counts  on 
God — that  forgets  whether  it  is  great  faith 
or  not  because  it  reckons  on  God  obtains 
the  answer.  The  faith  that  does  nothing 
itself,  and  so  leaves  God  plenty  of  room 
to  do  it  all,  that  is  the  faith  we  want. 

People  say  'T  have  not  faith  enough." 
You  do  not  want  faith  enough.  It  is  God 
that  is  going  to  do  the  work  and  it  is  for 
you  to  sit  still  and  see  Him  do  it.  A  friend 
wrote  me  a  letter  the  other  day,  which  I 
was  glad  to  get,  chiefly  on  account  of  the 
way  in  which  he  concluded  it.  Many  peo- 
ple sign  themselves  "Yours  faithfully," 
"Yours  sincerely,"  and  so  on,  when  they 
mean  nothing  of  the  kind  and  may  perhaps 
be  trying  to  take  advantage  of  you  even  in 
the  very  letter  itself.  But  my  friend  signed 
himself  "Yours  to  count  nn."  That  is  the 
sort  of  signature  I  like  to  get  from  my 
friend;  and  God  has  signed  all  His  letters 
to  us  in  the  Bible  "Yours  to  count  on." 

Oh,  friends,  never  forget  that  the  best 
faith  is  that  which  is  not  conscious  of  being 
faith  at  all,  but  reckons  upon  God's  faithful- 
ness. I  like  to  go  sometimes — as  perhaps  I 
shall  to-morrow  night — out  upon  the  deck 
of  a  vessel  at  night  time,  and  look  up  at 
the  stars.  And  as  I  do  so  I  say  "Who  has 
created  all  these?"  And  as  I  remember 
that  through  uncounted  aeons  all  those  stars 
have  been  kept  running  in  their  appointed 
courses  with  such  exactness  that  no  varia- 
tion of  even  the  smallest  fraction  of  a  sec- 
ond has  ever  been  discovered,  I  say  to  my- 
self, "If  God  can  be  faithful  in  making 
such  a  timepiece  He  will  surely  be  faithful 
in  all  that  concerns  me !" 

I  look  at  Abraham  and  see  how  he  count- 
ed on  God  and  how  God  never  failed  him; 
1  see  that  no  man  ever  trusted  God  and 
was  put  to  confusion;  and  all  these  things 
make  me  say,  "I  will  count  on  Thee.  Thou 
hast  never  put  any  of  those  who  trusted  in 
Thee     among    mountains     without     being 

7 


abundantly  able  either  to  tunnel  through 
them  or  to  reduce  them  to  the  level  of  the 
plain." 

You  say,  "I  have  got  God's  promise." 
Pray  then,  reckoning  upon  His  faithfulness. 
The  more  you  think  of  Him  the  more  you 
will  feel  at  rest;  and  the  day  you  are  able 
without  effort  to  believe  that  the  mountain 
will  go,  you  have  it  from  God.  "Believe 
that  you  have  received  it" — (I  think  that 
is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  things  in  the 
whole  Bible ;  indeed  I  constantly  have  to 
look  at  that  text  to  see  that  I  have  not  mis- 
quoted it).  "Believe  that  you  have  received 
it !" 

As  yet  the  mountain  is  there.  As  yet  the 
parcel  has  not  come  to  you.  As  yet  the 
squadrons  of  God's  angels  do  not  appear 
hastening  to  your  help ;  but  as  you  kneel  in 
prayer  you  receive.  You  believe  you  have 
got  it.  The  very  thing  you  want  is  labelled 
for  you,  the  direction  is  written  on  it.  It 
may  not  be  to-day,  or  to-morrow,  or  a 
month,  or  a  year,  but  you  knozv  that  thing 
has  been  absolutely  consigned  to  you.  It 
is  in  God's  bonded  warehouse  waiting  for 
you  to  take  it. 

I  hai>e  received ;  I  have  the  Holy  Spirit ; 
I  liaz'C  the  salvation  of  my  child ;  I  have  my 
drunken  husband  restored  to  me  as  he  was 
when  he  took  me  to  the  altar ;  I  have  that 
great  boon — you  take  it ;  you  receive  it,  and 
an  infinite  peace  settles  down  on  the  soul. 

Lastly.  One  morning — it  may  be  a  week 
or  a  year,  or  ten  years,  or  twenty  years,  as 
you  get  up  and  go  to  the  window  you  rub 
your  eyes.  You  hardly  dared  to.  expect  it, 
after  all,  but  the  mountain  is  gone.  You 
could  never  have  moved  it,  but  your  faith 
has  been  receptive  of  the  lever  of  God's 
power,  and  the  mountain  has  gone  into  the 
sea.  Oh,  peace  of  God,  in  which  so  many 
mountains  are  buried !  Oh,  ocean  of  God, 
coming  up  in  little  wavelets  at  our  feet ! 
Oh,  mighty  God,  able  to  deal  with  things 
beyond  all  our  power  to  combat ! 

If  you  will  take  these  words  and  let  them 
ring  in  your  souls  until  you  die — "Believe 
that  you  have  received  them,"  in  your  ex- 
perience the  words  of  the  Saviour  shall  be 
fulfilled. 

What  is  great  to  you  is  nothing  to  God. 
What  is  impossible  for  you  God  can  put 
right  by  a  very  trifling  exercise  of  His 
])ower.  You  have  been  worrying  greatly 
over  certain  matters,  but  God  could  deal 
as  easily  with  all  your  affairs  put  together 
as  you  could  with  a  little  pebble.  And  God 
cares  for  you  and  your  little  life  just  as  if 
there    was    nothing    else    in    His    almighty 


keeping — as  if  you  were  the  only  person 
who  existed — as  if  all  the  resources  of  His 
being  were  concentrated  on  your  little  life. 

It  is  nothing  for  Him  to  set  you  free,  and 
if  He  lets  the  mountain  stay  there,  it  is  for 
some  wise  reason.  One  day  He  will  ex- 
plain to  you  and  take  you  on  His  bosom, 
and  when  you  ask  Him  why  you  passed 
through  these  experiences  that  now  try  you 
so  sorely  He  will  caress  you  and  smooth 
the  wrinkles  from  your  brow  and  say,  dear 
cliild,  that  mountain  was  there  to  try  you  I 

Mountains  make  strong  climbers,  deep 
breathers  and  vigorous  men.  The  enervat- 
ed inhabitants  of  valleys  miss  the  mountains. 
I  have  been  told  by  New  Englanders  in 
Omaha  that  they  have  there  missed  the 
mountains  among  which  they  were  brought 
up. 

The  mountain  is  needed  just  to  do  that 
work,  and  when  we  are  strong  enough  to 
stand  on  our  high  places  God  will  say,  that 
discipline  is  needed  no  more,  so  let  the 
mountain  be  removed;  "for  My  love  shall 
not  depart  nor  shall  t:--2  covenant  of  My 
peace  be  removed." 


Zbc  %05t  JSible. 

1Rcx>.  ip.  5.  fbenecn. 

2  Kings  xxii :  8. 

'  Hn&  lljilljiab  tbc  bigb  pricat  sait  unto  Sbapban  tbc  Scribe, 
IF  bave  foun^  tbc  booh  of  tbc  law  in  tbc  lljoufc  ot  tbc 


THERE  are  many  things  that  we 
do  not  at  all  appreciate  at  their 
proper  value,  simply  because  we 
have  always  been  accustomed  to 
them.  We  never  know  what 
anything  is  worth  till  we  have  lost  it.  Saul 
did  not  appreciate  Samuel  till  Samuel  was 
dead,  and  then  in  his  despair  he  cried  to  the 
witch  of  Endor.  "Bring  me  up  Samuel." 
Nobody  knows  what  bread  is  worth  till  he 
finds  himself  famishing  in  a  desert,  or  air 
till  thrust  in  some  "black  hole  of  Calcutta," 
or  light  till  cast  out  into  the  "outer  dark- 
ness," or  water  till  he  lifts  up  his  eyes  in 
torment  and  vainly  begs  for  a  single  drop 
to  cool  his  parched  tongue. 

And  the  like  is  true  of  the  book  we  call 
the  Bible.  We  were  born  in  a  Bible  land, 
and  from  earliest  childhood  our  lives  have 
been  illumined  by  the  radiance  that  streams 
from  its  open  pages.  We  have  so  long  been 
accustomed  to  it  that  we  cannot  conceive 
of  the  blackness  of  the  pall  that  would  en- 
shroud us  if  this  lamp  were  I" 'own  out. 

Upon  the  most  of  Africa  it  has  never 
shone,  and  therefore  we  call  it  "The  Dark- 
Continent."  It  is  the  absence  cf  the  "Book 
of  books"  that  makes  it  dark.  And  the 
like  is  true  of  large  tracts  of  Asia.  And 
over  much  of  Europe  and  South  America 
and  Central  America  and  INTexico  "dim 
eclipse  disastrous  twilight  spreads."  What 
ails  them  ?  Why  are  they  overspread  with 
gloom  when  the  sun  is  so  near  the  meridian? 
Why  lag  they  behind  when  other  peoples 
witli  prodigious  strides  are  forging  ahead? 

Pastor  of  Hanson  Place  Baptist  Church,  Brooklyn. 


The  all  sufficient  answer  is  that  they  have 
either  no  Bible  at  all,  or  it  is  chained  to 
the  pillars  of  priestly  cloisters  or  hidden 
away  beneath  the  rubbish  of  almost  heathen- 
ish superstition. 

And  per  contra  what  is  it  that  guides 
and  glorifies  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  and 
makes  the  Union  Jack  and  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  fly  the  highest  of  any  flags  that 
float  beneath  the  whole  heavens?  It  is  not 
the  grit  that  goes  with  Anglo-Saxon  blood, 
but  the  grace  that  goes  with  the  Word  of 
God.  The  strong  nations  are  the  Bible  na- 
tions the  wide  world  over.  If  ever  a  people 
had  occasion  to  bless  God  for  the  Bible 
they  are  the  people  that  dwell  beneath  the 
American  flag. 

And  if  ever  the  time  should  com.e  when 
the  Bible  shall  cease  to  be  potential  in  the 
councils  of  the  nation  and  in  the  school 
and  in  the  home  then  our  boasted  free  in- 
stitutions will  topple  to  their  fall  and  Icha- 
bod  will  be  written  all  over  their  ruins. 
Suppress  free  speech  if  you  please,  abolish 
trial  by  jury,  repudiate  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  banish  the  newspapers,  shut 
up  the  public  schools,  and  tear  down  all  the 
splendid  monuments  of  our  twentieth  cen- 
tury civilization,  and  yet  if  out  of  the  wreck 
you  save  the  Bible,  we  will  build  them 
all  over  again  even  grander  than  before. 
But  destroy  the  Bible  and  ''chaos  and  old 
night"  will  be  all  that  will  be  left.  And  yet 
some  of  our  race,  as  if  devil  possessed,  are 
working  like  beavers  to  rid  the  world  of 
a  book  to  which  they  are  so  deeply  indebted, 
and  which,  strangely  enough,  they  so 
cordially  hate,  and  are  gloating  like  demons 
over  the  prospect  of  success  in  their  dia- 
bolical endeavors.  And  in  these  latter  days, 
when  rationalistic  infidelity  is  riotous  and 
rampant  everywhere,  and  men  who  are  ac- 
counted as  foremost  scholars,  and  who  oc- 
cupy conspicuous  positions  in  our  theologi- 
cal seminaries  are  dealing  resounding  blows 
at  the  very  citadel  of  faith,  there  be  many 
earnest,  simple-hearted  folk  who  are  actu- 
ally afraid  that  something  dreadful  is  about 
to  befall  the  dear  old  book  to  which  they 
have  clung  so  lovingly  and  so  long.  And 
this  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  most 
momentous  question  that  has  ever  occupied 
the  thoughts  of  man — Is  there  any  real  dan- 
ger that  the  Bible  unll  he  lost? 

There  would  seem  to  be  such  a  possibil- 
ity, for  once  upon  a  time  it  actually  hap- 
pened. There  was  not  so  much  of  it  then  as 
now,  but  what  there  was  of  it  was  a  thing 
most  precious,  for  it  was  all  that  man  had 
of  a  written  revelation  from  God.     That  it 


chanced  to  be  lost  need  not  surprise  us,  for 
there  was  only  one  copy  in  all  the  wide 
world.  That  would  seem  indeed  to  have 
been  sufficiently  safe-guarded,  for  it  had 
been  entrusted  to  the  custody  of  a  people 
raised  up  for  this  very  purpose.  "What 
advantage  then  hath  the  Jew  ?  Much  every 
way.  Chiefly  because  that  unto  them  were 
committed  the  oracles  of  God  !" 

Enshrined  in  the  temple  on  Mount  Zion, 
the  very  Gibraltar  of  the  chosen  race,  and 
surrounded  by  the  very  flower  and  chivalry 
of  the  nation's  strength,  one  would  have 
thought  the  sacred  book  secure.  But  the 
sin-sodden  Manasseh  introduced  the  de- 
baucheries of  idolatry  into  the  very  courts 
of  the  house  of  God,  and  God's  "book  on 
every  page  flamed  out  at  "the  abomination 
of  desolation  standing  where  it  ought  not,"' 
and  therefore  the  old  King  hid  the  book 
away  in  a  corner,  and  then  conveniently  for- 
got the  corner.  It  was  buried  deep  beneath 
the  rubbish  of  heathenism,  and  the  years 
rolled  by  and  even  the  Jews  lost  sight  of 
the  fact  that  there  had  been  such  a  book. 
There  was  but  one  copy  and  that  was  lost, 
nor  was  it  found  again  till  long  after  j\la- 
nasseh  was  dead  and  the  pious  Josiah  was 
reigning  in  his  stead.  That  such  a  catas- 
trophe could  occur  again  would  seem  to  be 
a  thing  impossible,  for  instead  of  a  single 
copy  now  there  are  millions  upon  millions, 
and  every  year  adds  millions  more.  In  pub- 
lic libraries,  private  libraries,  in  hotels,  on 
railroads,  in  steamboats,  in  mining  camps, 
and  the  palaces  of  princes — everywhere  one 
may  find  the  Bible.  No  list  of  bridal  pres- 
ents is  complete  without  a  Bible,  for  wheth- 
er it  be  prized  and  read  or  not  it  is  not  re- 
garded as  good  form  to  keep  house  without 
it.  ^lore  widely  than  any  other  book  in  the 
world,  or  that  ever  was  in  the  world,  it  is 
distributed.  Surely  now  there  is  no  possi- 
bility of  its  perishing  from  the  earth.  And 
it  will  not.  Let  no  faint-hearted  Eli  sit 
trembling  in  the  gate  in  mortal  fear  lest 
some  disaster  shall  befall  the  ark  of  God. 
And  if  the  timorous  saint  suggest  that  the 
ancient  Eli  had  cause  to  tremble,  for  the 
ark  of  God  was  carried  away  into  captivity 
and  ignominiously  installed  l)y  the  Phil- 
istines in  the  house  of  their  god,  Dagon. 
I  would  remind  him  that  in  the  night  fol- 
lowing the  installation  Dagon  fell  down  be- 
fore the  ark  and  broke  his  neck,  and  that 
the  Philistines  made  haste  to  take  the  ark 
out  of  the  temple  of  the  idol,  but  wherever 
they  bore  it,  like  a  scythed  chariot,  it  mowed 
down  everything  before  it,  and  they  were 
glad  enough  to  send  it  back  to  its  resting 


place  in  Israel.  Let  us  be  sure  that  the 
Lord  of  hosts  will  take  care  of  his  ark.  The 
Book  of  God  is  as  indestructible  as  the 
throne  of  God.  Men  have  buried  it,  but, 
like  the  Christ  to  whom  it  witnesses,  it 
will  not  stay  buried.  They  have  burned  it, 
but  Phoenixlike  it  rises  again  out  of  the 
ashes. 

Heaven  and  earth  may  pass  away,  but  not 
one  jot  or  tittle  of  God's  Word  shall  fail. 

And  yet  while  the  Word  itself  shall  sur- 
vive all  "the  wrecks  of  time"  and  never 
shall  be  lost  to  the  race  of  men,  there  is 
imminent  danger  of  its  being  lost  to  the 
individual — of  its  being  lost  indeed  to  you. 
In  a  very  sad  sense  it  has  perhaps  been 
lost  to  you  already.  You  have  lost  the  Bi- 
ble that  your  mother  gave,  inscribed  with 
your  name  traced  by  a  hand  that  has  long 
siiice  mouldered  into  dust.  Just  how  you 
lost  it  you  may  not  be  able  to  tell,  but  some- 
where in  the  hurried  march  of  life  it  has 
dropped  out  of  sight.  You  bought  another 
more  costly,  it  may  be,  but  not  so  precious 
as  the  one  that  was  hallowed  by  her  pray- 
ers and  tears.  But  there  is  imminent  dan- 
ger of  your  losing  the  Bible  that  you  now 
have  and  losing  it  in  a  still  sadder  way, 
by  losing  the  grip  of  faith  upon  it.  The 
binding  may  be  left  and  the  printed  pages 
all  intact,  but  the  Bible  as  a  Bible  may  for 
you  have  slipped  away. 

I  had  a  precious  boy  long  ago,  now  safe- 
ly sheltered  in  the  upper  fold,  who  loved  me 
dearly  while  I  had  him  here,  and  who  de- 
lighted in  nothing  more  than  to  clamber 
up  the  stairs  to  my  study  and  sit  at  my  feet 
on  the  floor,  and  look  at  the  "picture  books" 
I  gave  him. 

One  day  in  my  absence  he  mounted  the 
chair  at  my  desk,  and  seeing  my  Bible  open, 
and  an  inkstand  and  a  sponge  very  tempt- 
ingly near  at  hand,  he  proceeded  to  make 
for  me  an  illustrated  Bible  by  passing  the 
ink-saturated  sponge  over  its  pages. 
Blessed  boy !  he  meant  not  to  ruin  my  Bible 
but  he  did.  He  was  only  a  "little  tot." 
and  so  I  kissed  him  and  forgave  him.  But 
what  shall  be  said  of  the  "grave  and  vener- 
able seignors,"  who  year  after  year  are  de- 
lightedly engaged  in  this  same  blotting  busi- 
ness ?  Men  have  ever  been  accustomed  to 
execrate  the  memory  of  Jehoiakim,  king  of 
Judah,  who,  with  his  penknife,  cut  out  tthe 
leaves  of  the  book  of  God  and  threw  them 
in  the  fire,  and  are  we  to  be  expected  pa- 
tiently to  look  on  while  the  destructive  crit- 
ics, with  their  knives  sharpened  upon  Ger- 
man whetstones,  are  cutting  out  page  after 
page  of  the  holy  writ? 

13 


The  book  survived  the  impious  rage  of 
Jehoiakim,  but  alas,  for  Jehoiakim !  The 
book  will  survive  the  attacks  of  its  modern 
critics,  but  alas  for  the  critics  themselves 
and  those  who  take  counsel  of  them.  For 
them  the  Bible  is  a  lost  book  as  truly  as 
it  was  in  the  days  of  old  Manasseh. 

And  then  again  even  though  faith  in  the 
Bible  be  not  gone,  it  may  be  practically  lost 
through  sheer  neglect.  It  has  happened 
in  the  Sunday  school,  which,  though  pre- 
sumably built  upon  the  Bible,  is  often  ill- 
provided  with  the  book,  and  instead  of  it 
in  many  a  class  there  is  "nothing  but  leaves" 
— "Lesson  Leaves." 

And  in  the  pulpit,  though  still  retained 
upon  the  desk  out  of  deference  to  ancient 
and  time-honored  usage,  how  frequently 
only  the  barest  shred  of  it  is  brought  into 
requisition  by  the  preacher,  and  that  shred 
which  he  takes  for  a  text  he  simply  uses 
as  a  point  of  departure — a  point  to  which 
he  never  returns  in  the  course  of  his  ser- 
mon, but  preaches  out  of  his  head  instead  of 
out  of  the  book,  spinning  airy  cobwebs 
instead  of  giving  the  famishing  people  the 
pure  milk  or  the  strong  meat  of  the  Word. 

And  out  of  our  individual  homes  and 
hearts  and  lives  it  is  in  danger  of  being  lost. 
We  are  so  cumbered  with  the  cares  of  life, 
so  infatuated  with  the  pleasures  of  life,  so 
hot-footed  in  the  pursuit  of  the  almighty 
dollar  that  we  have  left  little  or  no  time  for 
the  perusal  of  the  Bible.  And  what  time 
we  do  have  is  apt  to  be  monopolized  by  other 
books.  Even  as  far  back  as  Solomon's  time 
it  was  said  that  "of  making  many  books 
there  is  no  end,"  but  what  would  the  wise 
man  say  if  he  were  living  now?  Tons  upon 
tons,  tons  upon  tons,  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  tons  of  books  are  being  dumped  by  the 
printing  press  over  all  the  face  of  the 
earth,  and  under  them  the  Bible  is  in  danger 
of  being  buried  out  of  sight.  And  the  daily 
newspaper,  especially  the  monster  Sunday 
newspaper — that  "abomination  of  desola- 
tion." standing  where  it  ought  not ! — that 
clinging  curse  entailed  by  the  civil  war  falls 
like  a  pall  upon  our  Christian  homes,  and 
shuts  out  the  light  which  would  otherwise 
stream  from  the  pages  of  God's  book.  And 
Christian  people  such  as  are  not  absorbed 
in  the  Sunday  papers  are  sometimes  so  ab- 
sorbed in  religious  work  as  scarcely  to  have 
leisure  left  to  feed  their  own  souls  on  the 
Word  of  God.  And  so  the  book  is  largely 
lost  to  them.  And  this  is  what  ails  the 
church  to-day.  The  pulpit  has  lost  its 
grip  on  the  people  because  the  preacher  has 
lost  his  grip  on  the  Bible.     He  has  let  go 


the  two-edged  sword  of  the  Spirit  and  is 
flourishing  instead  a  baton  all  bedecked  with 
ribbons.  He  is  playing  at  preaching  in- 
stead of  fighting  like  a  man  who  is  dead  in 
earnest. 

And  this  is  what  is  the  matter  with  the 
pew.  This  is  why  there  is  so  little  love 
and  faith  and  hope,  and  why  such  soft  sus- 
ceptibility to  sin,  and  such  readiness  to  be 
caught  by  every  fad  that  the  devil  sets 
afloat,  and  to  be  carried  about  by  every 
wind  of  doctrine,  and  to  be  overborne  by 
every  wave  of  trouble.  They  have  none  of 
the  stable  anchorage  and  solid  stamina  of 
those  "whose  delight  is  in  the  law  of  the 
Lord  and  who  meditate  upon  it  day  and 
night." 

In  the  bosom  of  many  a  man  who  has 
practically  lost  the  Bible  there  is  sometimes 
awakened  a  painful  consciousness  of  the 
dropping  out  of  his  life  of  that  which  once 
gave  to  him  the  sweetest  solace  and  the 
noblest  inspiration,  and  he  is  disposed  to 
crv  with  Job,  "Oh,  that  I  were  as  in  months 
past,  as  in  the  days  when  God  preserved 
me,  when  His  candle  shone  upon  my  head, 
and  when  by  His  light  I  walked  through 
darkness  !"  And  this  leads  up  to  the  ques- 
tion as  to  how  the  lost  Bible  may  be  found 
once  more. 

You  remember  how  you  found  it  first. 
Long  had  you  had  it  in  your  hands,  but  it 
was  as  unintelligible  as  a  Delphic  Oracle  and 
as  dark  as  Mammoth  cave.  It  was  to  you 
a  sealed  book  and  you  had  no  power  to 
loose  the  seals.  In  your  extremity  you 
reached  out  your  hands  unto  God,  and 
prayed,  "Lord,  lift  thou  upon  me  the  light 
of  thy  countenance !"  Then  something  hap- 
pened as  the  consequence  of  which  you  saw 
light — God's   light. 

Some  of  you  may  remember  to  have  heard 
the  story  of  a  man  that  afterwards  became 
eminent  in  public  life,  but  who.  in  very 
early  childhood  was  counted  little  better  than 
a  fool.  He  was  always  to  be  found  at  the 
foot  of  his  class,  and  was  the  butt  of  the 
boys,  and  was  to  the  teacher  what  seemed 
to  him  "a  thorn  in  the  flesh,  a  messenger 
of  Satan  sent  to  buffet  him" — not  by  reason 
of  his  viciousness,  but  his  invincible  stupid- 
ity. He  was  the  only  son  of  his  mother, 
and  she  was  a  widow.  She  did  her  best  to 
stimulate  his  sluggish  powers,  if  indeed  his 
feeble  mental  faculties  deserved  the  name  of 
powers  at  all,  but  apparently  in  vain.  On 
one  occasion  when  the  school  in  which  he 
was  a  pupil  was  to  give  an  entertainment 
tne  poor  mother  besought  the  principal  to 
give  her  boy   "a   piece   to   speak,"   hoping 

15 


thus  to  make  him  feel  that  he  was  not  an 
utter  "derehct."  The  officer  appealed  to 
reluctantly  consented,  and  the  mother  un- 
dertook the  task  of  teaching  him  the  piece, 
but,  after  hours  of  patient  labor,  not  a  line 
was  the  boy  able  to  repeat.  At  the  last, 
the  mother,  frantic  with  despair,  dropped  on 
her  knees  and  cried,  "Oh,  God,  have 
pity  upon  me,  for  my  poor  boy  is 
a  fool."  The  boy  overheard  her,  and, 
in  sympathy  with  her,  felt  as  if  his 
heart  would  break ;  and  something  did 
break,  only  it  was  not  his  heart,  but 
something  in  his  head,  as  he  declared 
afterwards.  All  the  blood  in  his  body 
seemed  to  rush  to  his  brain,  and  something 
gave  way,  and  his  mind  was  flooded  as  with 
sudden  sunburst,  and  throwing  his  arms 
about  his  mother's  neck  he  exclaimed, 
"Mother,  I  can  say  it  now,"  and  say  it  he 
did,  every  word  of  it  without  a  break,  and 
many  other  things  he  delightedly  repeated 
that  he  had  vainly  tried  to  learn  at  school, 
and  from  that  hour  as  with  preternaturally 
quickened  faculties  he  forged  ahead  until  he 
became  the  loremost  scholar  in  the  school, 
and  afterwards  rose  to  be  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  jurists  in  the  land. 

Something  like  unto  that  happened  when 
"God  who  commanded  the  light  to  shine 
out  of  darkness  shone  into  your  heart  to 
give  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  glory 
of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ."  And 
■'beholding  as  in  a  mirror  the  glory  of  the 
Lord  you  were  changed  into  the  same  image 
from  glory  unto  glory  even  as  by  jthe  Spirit 
of  the  Lord."  That  mirror  was  the  Word 
of  God,  and  as  you  rapturously  gazed  into 
it  you  declared  you  had  never  seen  it  in 
this  wise  before.  You  had  found  the  Bible. 
But  maybe  you  have  lost  it  since — lost 
it  as  Man'asseh  lost  it — strange  gods  have 
come  in  with  all  their  train  of  trumpery, 
and  the  Bible  has  been  "hidden  among  the 
stuff."  You  have  sought  satisfaction  by 
dallying  with  these  strange  delights,  but 
there  has  always  been  a  consciousness  of  an 
aching  void  which  such  things  could  never 
All.  You  had  had  enough  of  religion  to 
s])oil  the  world,  and  you  have  enough  of  the 
world  to  spoil  religion.  And  so  there  is  no 
light  but  rather  darkness  visible,  and  you 
are  miserably  groping  through  the  gloom 
towards  your  grave,  and  all  because  you 
have  lost  the  only  light  that  can  illumine 
this  world  of  sorrows  and  sin.  Would  you 
find  your  lost  Bible?  Look  for  it  in  the 
house  of  God.  That  is  where  they  found 
it  in  the  time  of  King  Josiah.  Linger 
lovingly  in  the  King's  courts  with  an  ear- 
i6 


nest  long-ing  in  your  heart  "to  behold  the 
beauty  of  the  Lord  and  to  inquire  in  His 
temple,"  and  you  shall  find  it. 

And  slacken  the  speed  at  which  you  are 
racing  after  worldly  goods.  There  is  no 
scripture  which  says,  "He  that  runs  shall 
read,"  but  "He  that  reads  shall  run."  God's 
plan  is  not  to  read  as  we  run,  but  to  read 
first,  and  then,  inspired  by  the  reading,  to 
run.  Once  on  a  time  I  discovered  on  awak- 
ing while  aboard  a  sleeping  car  that  when- 
ever I  undertook  to  read  a  line  every  word 
was  strangely  cut  in  two  so  that  only  half 
of  it  was  legible.  An  awful  apprehension  of 
approaching  blindness  seized  me.  On  arriv- 
ing at  my  destination  I  hurried  to  an  oculist, 
who  mightily  relieved  me  by  assuring  me 
that  there  was  nothing  in  the  world  the  mat- 
ter with  my  eyes,  but  that  I  had  been  driv- 
ing my  brain  at  too  hot  a  pace  and  needed 
to  slow  up  if  I  would  avert  a  breakdown. 

Let  us  learn  the  meaning  of  taking  time 
to  be  holy,  and  taking  time  for  the  patient 
and  pious  pondering  of  the  Word  of  God. 

INIany  a  scripture  is  like  a  sleeping  child, 
at  which,  if  you  only  gaze  long  and  steadily 
enough,  it  will  open  its  eyes,  and  you  will 
look  down  into  the  very  depths  of  God's 
wells  of  truth. 

Would  you  find  your  lost  Biole?  Clear 
away  all  the  rubbish  that  has  been  allowed 
to  cover  it  up.  It  was  thus  that  Hilkiah 
found  it  in  the  time  of  King  Josiah.  And 
above  all — Do  it.  If  anv  man  fails  to  do 
the  duty  that  he  knows,  and  that  is  clearly 
set  before  him  in  the  Word  of  God,  there 
shall  presently  settle  a  cloud  upon  the  very 
\\'ord  itselt  and  in  that  cloud  it  shall  be 
caught  away.  But  "if  any  man  will  do 
His  will  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine." 
and  as  he  goes  forward  in  the  doing  the  light 
shall  shine  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect 
day  and  presently  he  shall  be  ready  exult- 
ingly  to  say : 

What  glory  gilds  the  sacred  page. 

Majestic  like  the  snn ; 
It  gives  a  light  to  every  age — 

It  gives,  but  borrows  none. 


(Tbe  6o^bea^  of  Jceue, 

iRcv.  D.  2).  ^cXaurin,  B.  2). 

CoLOSSiANS  ii  :  9. 
"Tor  in  film  dwelletb  all  the  fulness  of  tbe  6odhead  bodily." 

THERE  are  majesties  of  expres- 
sion in  nature  that  absolutely 
overwhelm  us,  and  that  we  can- 
not understand.  They  overpower 
the  emotions  and  force  the  mind 
to  admit  that  it  is  unable  to  canvass  their 
greatness.  Such  an  expression  is  Niagara. 
Its  vastness  absolutely  dwarfs  one.  It  was 
Daniel  Webster  who  said,  when  standing 
at  the  base  of  the  American  falls:  "I  feel 
myself  to  be  no  larger  than  an  ant  standing 
here.  I  cannot  compress  with  my  niind  the 
majesty  of  this  presentation."  No  one,  so 
far  as  I  knov.%  in  any  part  of  our  country, 
will  deny  to  the  eminent  Webster  great 
mental  capacity.  Men  have  felt  the  same 
on  the  Swiss  Alps,  those  wonderful  snow- 
clad  ranges  like  mountain  masses  of  frozen 
splendor.  Thus  men  have  felt  on  the  im- 
measureable  slopes  of  the  Andes.  And  so 
we  say  there  are  majesties  of  expression  in 
nature  that  the  mind  cannot  comprehend, 
that  force  it  to  admit  that  it  cannot  com- 
prehend them,  and  that  prefer  themselves 
for  translation  to  the  realm  of  the  emotions. 
As  in  nature,  which  is  the  realm  of  ob- 
jects, so  in  thought,  which  is  the  realm  of 
ideas,  there  are  majesties  that  we  cannot 
understand  in  the  Bible  where  the  moun- 
tainous thoughts  of  the  world  stand.  We 
cannot  scale  them  to  their  summit,  however 
strong  we  may  be  in  our  power  of  climbing. 
We  cannot  sound  them  to  their  profoundest 
depths,   we  cannot  measure  the   extent  of 

Pastor  of  Second  Baptist  Church,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 


their  reach,  we  cannot  touch  their  outermost 
rim.  And  so  as  the  mind  of  man  travels 
through  this  wonderful  Bible  of  ours,  it 
comes  at  times  upon  such  an  expression, 
such  a  conception,  and  before  it,  stands 
dumb. 

The  text  which  I  have  announced  for 
our  consideration  this  evening  seems  to  me 
to  be  of  this  character.  It  must  have  leaped 
from  the  mouth  of  inspiration  itself.  No 
man  unaided  would  have  dared  to  give  it 
utterance.  Mortal  faculty  of  its  own  self 
could  never  have  created  the  conception. 
Paul  did  not  speak  it  of  himself.  It  was 
spoken  through  him.  It  sounds  like  a 
voice  from  the  skies.  Using  Paul  as  an 
herald,  the  skies  made  proclamation  of  a 
truth  that  otherwise  could  never  have  been 
communicated  to  man.  The  mountainous 
expression  is  this:  "In  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
an  historical  character,  the  man  confessedly 
of  all  men — in  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the  ful- 
ness of  the  Godhead  dwelleth  bodily." 

SOME    DEFINITIONS. 

I  want  to  be  very  simple,  although  the 
theme  may  indicate  the  reverse,  and  so  I 
will  begin  by  definition,  and  first  with  some 
preliminary  definitions. 

The  word  "fulness"  means  that  which  is 
filled,  made  perfect,  made  complete.  "The 
earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fulness  thereof," 
that  is  to  say,  that  all  the  earth  contains 
is  the  Lord's.  And  the  meaning  of  our  text 
is  that  all  the  natural,  the  moral  attributes 
or  qualities  of  the  eternal  God  are  in  the 
person  under  consideration.  If  any  one  at- 
tribute or  quality  were  omitted,  any  one 
element  of  his  being  were  left  out,  it  would 
be  impossible  for  inspiration  to  say  that  "in 
Him  dwelleth  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead 
bodily." 

And  the  word  "dwelleth"  needs  also  a 
preliminary  observation.  It  differs  from 
the  word  used  by  John  in  John  i:i4,  that 
marvelous  verse,  which  says  "the  Word 
became  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us."  The 
word  there  means  "to  tabernacle  among." 
You  will  find  that  written  in  the  margin  of 
the  revised  version.  It  means  that  Jesus 
made  a  temporary  sojourn.  The  word  here 
is  not  the  same  word,  nor  does  it  mean  to 
tabernacle.  It  means  to  live  as  in  a  house 
abidingly.  Paul  was  making  a  strong  argu- 
ment against  certain  heresy  teachers  in  the 
early  church,  men  who  asserted  that  matter 
was  in  itself  evil,  and  who  could  not  brook 
the  thought  that  the  son  of  God  should  be 
forever  linked  with  a  human  body,  and 
therefore  they  taught  a  doctrine  at  variance 


with  the  Bible  concerning  Him.  To  me 
there  is  nothing  more  delightful  than  the 
thought  that  the  Son  of  God,  the  eternal 
now  dwells  in  the  bodily  manifestation 
which  He  took  with  Him  to  glory.  You 
will  see  Him,  you  will  know  Him,  for  He 
is  the  God  now  dwelling  in  the  body. 

Now,  a  little  further  by  way  of  definition. 
''Fulness"  means  sufficiency,  abundance, 
richness.  In  Christ,  therefore,  dwells  all 
the  sufficiency  of  the  Godhead.  Will  you 
fathom  that  thought?  What  mortal  mind 
can  apprehend  the  sufficiency  of  the  out- 
goings of  the  Eternal?  Who  understands 
the  sufficiency  of  the  sea?  Who  knows  its 
multitudinous  life?  How  vast  and  wonder- 
ful it  is !  Who  knows  the  richness  of  the 
earth,  the  mother  and  nurse  of  all  the  seeds, 
the  parent  and  cradle  of  all  growths  ?  Have 
you  never  been  astonished  at  the  wonderful 
richness  of  the  earth?  How,  year  after 
year,  without  failure,  she  yields  through  her 
bosom  the  wonderful  growths  that  delight 
the  world  and  that  feed  the  world.  Who 
knows  the  sufficiency  of  the  orbs  that  make 
the  day  and  that  braid  their  glory  into  the 
robes  of  night?  Who  knows  the  overflow- 
ing of  the  clouds,  the  springs  that  never  fail, 
the  streams  that  never  run  dry,  the  rivers 
that  flow  on  in  their  majestic  current  cen- 
tury after  century,  millennium  after  mil- 
lennium, carrying  forward  without  cessa- 
tion or  break  their  mighty  tide?  Yet  these 
are  only  a  few  among  the  creatures  of  God, 
and  the  creatures  that  we  can  apprehend 
with  our  capacity.  If  this,  then, -be  true 
of  these  creatures  of  God,  what  must  we 
say  of  the  Maker  of  them  all?  If  confes- 
sedly man  cannot  comprehend  the  majesties 
of  these  presentations,  if  even  Daniel  Web- 
ster cannot  grasp  with  his  gigantic  mind 
the  majesty  of  Niagara,  rolling  on  and  on, 
tumbling  with  its  massive  power  into  the 
gorge  below,  need  we  apologize  if  we  can- 
not comprehend  some  of  the  mountainous 
thoughts  of  the  word  of  God,  or  compre- 
hend the  Being  to  whom  even  this  tiny  earth 
is  but  "as  the  small  dust  of  the  balance?" 
There  is  something  very  strange  about  men 
who  will  gladly  own  their  inability  to  master 
things  at  hand,  things  that  are  sensuous, 
that  they  can  feel  and  touch,  and  yet  will 
not  believe  something  supernatural,  beyond 
their  reach,  simply  because  they  cannot 
master  it.     Is  that  not  strange? 

Now,  the  word  "Godhead"  is  a  symbol. 
All  words  are  in  some  sense  symbolic. 
They  present  ideas.  But  some  words  have 
more  inclusive  in  their  symbolization  than 
others,  and  this  is  one  of  them.     The  word 


Godhead  is  symbolic  of  more  than  one 
idea,  yea,  of  many  ideas.  I  want  this  even- 
ing to  speak  to  you  in  a  brief  way  of  three 
of  them. 

GOD  AS  A  PERSON. 

First  of  all,  God  is  a  person,  and  Godhead 
stands  for  that.  I  know  I  am  venturing 
into  a  most  difficult  realm  of  thinking  when 
I  undertake  to  speak  of  personality,  either 
human  or  divine,  but  we  know  that  God 
is  a  person.  I  know  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
personality  of  God  has  sometimes  been  very 
crudely  put,  but  because  it  has  been  crude- 
ly put,  and  because  its  representations  have 
sometimes  been  gross,  are  we  therefore  to 
deny  the  personality  of  God?  Modern 
thought,  unilluminated  by  the  gospel  of 
Christ,  influenced  by  the  current  philosophy 
of  evolution,  seeks  to  eliminate  personality 
from  the  universe,  and  therefore,  from  God. 
That  sort  of  philosophy  teaches  us  that 
there  is  nothing  stable,  that  nothing  is  sta- 
tic, to  use  their  term,  that  everything  is  in 
process.  The  universe  is  not  a  being,  but 
process.  The  universe  is  not  a  being,  but  a 
becoming ;  man  is  not  a  being,  but  a  becom- 
ing; God  is  not  a  Being,  but  a  becoming. 
If  everything  is  in  process  how  can  any  one 
have  personality  ?  The  boldest  of  these  phi- 
losophers claim  that  the  universe  is  in  pro- 
cess, man  is  in  process,  and  therefore  God 
is  in  process  and  so  they  deny  Him  His  per- 
sonality. But  I  am  very  glad  to  report  that 
there  is  a  sane  return  from  that  extreme 
position  of  men  who  have  mastered,  as  they 
think,  evolution,  but  have  not  yet  been  mas- 
tered by  the  illuminating  Spirit,  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  personality  of  God. 

I  found  while  reading  that  strong  book  of 
harnack's  this  splendid  little  sentence:  Fire 
is  kindled  only  by  fire ;  personal  life  only  by 
personal  forces.  I  know  not  how  it  is  with 
you,  but  I  know  that  I  am  a  person.  Is  not 
my  ^laker  also  a  person?  I  will  not  under- 
take to  define  myself  a  person,  but  I  know 
that  I  am  an  individual,  a  person  distinct 
from  you  all  and  from  every  other  thing  in 
the  universe.  I  am  conscious  of  a  sover- 
eignty. I  know  that  I  am.  God  is  a  person, 
and  He  is  a  person  who  loves  us.  and  whom 
we  can  love. 

GOD   A   PURE   ESSENCE. 

Then,  in  the  second  place,  God  is  pure 
being,  pure  essence.  God  is  the  origin  and 
fountain  of  all  that  is.  God  is  the  source 
of  every  life.  Every  tiniest  rill  of  it  in 
the  universe  has  flowed  forth  from  the 
Eternal.     I  am  not  going  to  enter  into  this 


argument  as  it  might  be  elaborated,  but  I 
simply  attempt  to  bring  it  before  you  that 
the  colossal  thought  may  find  a  proper 
place  in  your  minds.  God  is  the  essence 
of  things.  There  is  nothing  about  Him  that 
is  evanescent,  nothing,  as  in  us,  that  is  ex- 
posed to  decay  and  change.  He  is  life.  He 
is  vital.  He  is  so  vital  that  all  his  overflow- 
ings are  vital,  and  quicken  everything  they 
touch.  God  is  a  tree  without  a  withered 
leaf.  God  is  a  sky  which  from  all  Eternity 
has  lost  never  a  star.  Godhead  stands  sym- 
bolic of  that. 

MERCY,   PITY,   LOVE,  AMONG   HIS  ATTRIBUTES. 

Then,  in  the  third  place,  God  has  attri- 
butes, such  as  justice,  mercy,  pity,  com- 
passion, love.  I  am  extremely  reluctant, 
thus  to  analyze  God  into  His  attributes.  I 
prefer  to  conduct  my  thinking  along  the  line 
suggested  by  my  noble  college  president, 
when  he  said :  "All  of  God  is  in  every  at- 
tribute," and  it  is  thus  I  think  of  Him,  not 
as  torn  asunder  into  attributes  as  theology 
has  separated  Him.  Yet,  for  sake  of  conve- 
nience, we  speak  of  Him  in  this  way.  I 
believe  that  theology  has  done  vast  harm 
in  more  directions  than  one,  and  perhaps  in 
no  direction  more  than  in  setting  God's  at- 
tributes over  against  one  another,  as  when 
it  has  set  His  justice  over  against  His  mercy 
and  has  required  His  mercy  to  placate  His 
justice,  and  has  taught  that  Jesus  Christ 
died  in  order  to  appease  the  wrath  of  God 
and  satisfy  His  justice,  as  if  Jesus  were  not 
the  expression  of  the  mercy  and  love  of  God. 
I  believe  that  His  mercy  is  in  His  justice 
and  His  mercy  and  His  justice  are  in  His 
pity,  and  His  justice  and  mercy  and  pity 
are  in  His  love,  in  a  word,  that  all  of  God 
is  love. 

Godhead  stands  symbolic  of  all  that.  Is 
not  that  wonderful?  God  is  great  in  all 
His  qualities  and  attributes.  He  is  great 
in  His  love.  But  what  is  love?  We  some- 
times quote  the  definition  of  God  given  in 
the  Bible :  "God  is  love,"  and  we  know  that 
our  little  child  can  understand  it  in  part; 
we  also  believe  that-  the  most  intelligent 
angel,  if  there  be  degrees  in  their  intelli- 
gence at  all,  cannot  exhaust  its  meaning. 
God  is  love,  but  what  is  love  ?  Will  you  de- 
fine love?  Will  you  tell  me  what  love  is? 
Can  you  give  us  an  analysis  of  love  ?  The 
term  love  is  like  the  term  God  itself.  It  is 
spiritual  it  is  invisible,  it  is  subtle,  it  is  intri- 
cate, it  is  impossible  for  you  to  analyze  it. 
Yet  we  are  not  going  to  hang  our  heads  in 
shame  because  we  are  not  able  to  analyze 
or  define  love.     We  cannot  understand  or 


know  everything,  but  we  know  love  when 
we  see  it.  We  feel  it,  we  recognize  its  mani- 
festations in  life,  and  the  child  can  do  that 
and  the  mature  man  can  do  nothing  more. 
Who  possibly  can  fathom  the  meaning  of 
that  wonderful  sentence,  the  gospel  in  epi- 
tome :  "For  God  so  loved  the  world  that 
He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that  who- 
soever believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish, 
but  have  everlasting  life."  God  is  so  great 
that  even  in  love,  while  He  is  love  itself, 
we  cannot  begin  to  comprehend  Him. 

THE   GREAT    INDEFINABLE. 

Do  you  know,  friends,  that  anything  is 
m}-sterious  to  us  that  we  are  unable  to  de- 
fine, that  we  are  unable  to  limit  or  measure  ? 
The  ocean  is  no  longer  a  mystery  to  us, 
because  we  have  sent  our  great  ships  back 
and  forth  across  it.  First,  five  months  was 
required  for  the  voyage,  then  five  weeks, 
now  but  five  days.  There  is  no  mystery 
longer  in  the  melancholy,  heaving  sea.  But 
before  men  knew  the  outermost  bounds  of 
it,  and  measured  its  shores,  the  ocean  was  a 
mystery.  So  it  is  with  the  being  of  God. 
He  is  indefinable.  It  is  impossible  for  us 
to  sound  His  depths  by  any  plummet  we 
can  find,  or  to  measure  the  extent  of  His 
being  by  any  measuring  rod  that  mortal 
man  has  ever  yet  seen. 

The  word  Godhead,  then,  is  a  symbol  of 
that  collectiveness  of  attributes  of  power,  of 
faculty  or  whatever  else  you  choose  to  call 
it,  which  inheres  in  God.  To  say  that  all 
this  dwelleth  bodily  in  a  man  is  simply 
startling.  It  lifts  that  man  above  considera- 
tion or  comparison  with  all  other  men.  It 
stands  Him  aside,  it  makes  Him  the  unique 
figure  thus  far  in  human  history.  If  you 
can  say  of  Him  that  "In  Him  dwelleth  all 
the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily,"  you 
are  saying  of  Him  what  it  is  impossible  to 
say  of  any  other  man  known  in  human  his- 
tory, or  lives  at  this  hour  two  thousand 
years  after  Him. 

SOME    PRACTICAL    APPLICATIONS. 

Let  us  look  at  Him.  Here  is  a  great 
crowd  surrounding  a  house.  This  Teacher 
of  Galilee  is  within.  Men  are  coming  bear- 
ing a  poor  paralytic  on  a  cot.  It  is  impos- 
sible for  them  to  enter  by  the  door.  They 
climb  a  stone  stairway  on  the  outside,  and 
remove  the  tiles  from  the  roof  and  let  their 
precious  patient  down  before  Him.  This 
Galilean  Teacher  stops  in  the  midst  of  His 
discourse,  and  says  :  "Son,  thy  sins  are  for- 
given." I  want  you  to  see  Him — your  God 
— in  the  midst  of  men,  God,  who  alone  has 

23 


power  to  forgive  sins.  The  fulness  of 
God's  power  is  there  to  forgive  human  sin  ! 

Another  clay.  The  crowd  is  pressing  close 
upon  the  Teacher.  He  has  been  summoned 
to  yonder  stricken  home.  A  poor  woman 
who  had  suffered  many  years  at  the  hands 
of  the  physicians  and  was  nothing  better, 
said:  "If  I  can  reach  up  and  touch  but  the 
border  of  His  garment  I  shall  be  made 
whole,"  and  she  reaches  through  the  crowd 
and  timidly  touches  that  garment,  and  im- 
mediately she  was  made  whole.  Let  me 
draw  the  curtain  aside  and  say  to  you,  men 
and  women,  behold  }our  God.  As  you  see 
Him  giving  life  and  healing  to  earth's 
wounded  and  suffering,  you  behold  God 
Himself  in  these  beneficent  acts  of  mercy. 

Another  picture.  It  is  midnight.  It  is  in 
the  city  of  the  great  King.  There  is  a 
knock  at  the  outer  door.  A  venerable  fath- 
er is  ushered  in.  As  soon  as  he  takes  his 
place  on  the  divan  over  against  the  Teacher, 
he  says:  "Rabbi,  we  know  that  thou  art  a 
teacher  come  from  God ;  for  no  man  can  do 
these  signs  that  thou  doest,  except  God 
be  with  him."  And  brushing  away  the 
questions  with  which  he  came  Jesus  opened 
to  him  the  profoundest  truths  concerning 
man's  needs  and  nature  that  man  had  ever 
heard. 

Another  day.  He  is  journeying  up 
through  the  country,  and  at  the  noon  hour 
He  takes  His  seat  on  the  curb  of  Jacob's 
ancient  well.  His  disciples  have  gone  to 
buy  bread.  A  woman  of  the  town  comes 
to  the  well  to  draw  water,  and  Jesus  there 
terminates  the  old  Jewish  economy  and  gives 
the  sublimest  teaching  concerning  worship 
the  world  has  ever  heard.  Put  the  two  to- 
gether and  you  have  in  this  Galilean  Teach- 
er the  fulness  of  wisdom.  He  is  the  only 
Teacher  who  has  spoken  so  fundamentally 
upon  the  highest  problems  of  worship  and 
experience.  In  Him  behold  God.  "He  that 
hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father." 

Another  day.  There  is  a  lovely  family 
in  a  beautiful  town  about  two  miles  from 
Jerusalem.  When  at  Jerusalem  He  made 
His  home  there.  There  were  three  in  the 
family,  a  brother  and  two  sisters.  The 
Teacher  was  away  beyond  Jordan,  but  they 
knew  His  address  and  when  the  brother  was 
sick  they  sent  Him  word,  but  He  did  not 
come  immediately.  He  told  His  disciples 
associated  with  Him  that  His  friend  was 
sick  over  in  Bethany,  and  by  and  by  He 
went.  But,  ah,  it  is  too  late.  The  body  is 
now  in  the  grave  four  days.  The  sisters 
are  smitten,  with  grief,  their  eyes  are  red 
with  tears,  and  this  Galilean  Teacher  weeps 
24 


with  them,  and  as  He  stands  there  weeping- 
He  says :  "I  am  the  Resurrection  and  the 
Life;  he  that  beheveth  on  Me,  though  he 
die,  yet  shall  he  live ;  and  whosoever 
liveth  and  believeth  in  Ale  shall  never  die." 
Listen,  men  and  women,  only  God  could 
speak  in  that  way. 

JFSUS    SPEAKS    WITH    POWER    OF    GOD. 

And  once  more.  Around  Him  are  grief- 
stricken  men.  Their  hearts  are  sore.  Tliev 
are  full  of  trouble,  the  common  lot  of  hu- 
manity. And  this  Teacher  seated  in  their 
midst  says  to  them  :  "Let  not  your  hearts 
be  troubled;  ye  believe  in  God,  believe  also 
in  me.  In  my  Father's  house  are  many 
mansions;  if  it  were  not  so,  I  would  have 
told  you,  for  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you. 
And  if  I  go  and  prepare  a  place  for  you, 
I  will  come  again  and  will  receive  you  unto 
myself ;  that  where  I  am  there  ye  may  be 
also."     Only  God  could  speak  like  that. 

Have  you  lost  your  friend?  Have  you 
buried  him  away  out  of  your  sight  ?  I  want 
to  draw  the  curtain  away  and  say  to  you : 
"Behold  your  sympathetic  God,  for  in  Him 
who  stands  in  the  presence  of  your  grief, 
Himself  moved  by  a  sympathy  that  makes 
Him  tremble  like  a  leaf,  you  see  how  God 
feels." 

Are  you  looking  out  upon  the  future? 
You  know  that  your  years  are  few?  Are 
you  disturbed  as  to  what  comes  next?  I 
want  you  to  listen  to  me.  In  seeing  Jesus 
Christ  you  see  God,  and  when  He  says  to 
you  :  "Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled,  I  will 
come  back  for  you,  I  will  take  you  to  my- 
self, that  where  I,  the  God  dwelling  in 
the  body  like  your  own,  glorified  now  as 
you  and  yours  will  be  glorified  by  and  by, 
am,  there  you  may  be  also,"  He  speaks  with 
the  authority  of  the  Father,  God. 

I  was  startled  quite  as  much,  when  I 
first  approached  the  study  of  this  text,  by 
the  verse  next,  which  I  am  not  now  really 
treating,  as  by  this  one,  but  in  the 
light  of  this  exposition  we  can  appreciate  it : 

"For  in  Him  dwelleth  all  the  fulness  of 
the  Godhead  bodily  ;  and  in  Him  are  ye  made 
full,  who  is  the  head  of  all  principality  and 
power." 

Is  that  not  a  wonderful  gospel?  Let  us 
thank  God  for  it. 


Jfrom  Betbcl  to  Bethel. 

IRer.  5.  'WaUbur  Cbapman,  2>.  2). 

Genesis  xxxv  :  3. 

"E«t  us  arise  and  go  up  to  Bctbcl." 

I  DOUBT  not  you  have  frequently 
seen  the  sky  when  throughout  a 
long  day  it  has  been  overcast  with 
clouds,  only  now  and  then  the  sun 
would  break  forth  but  for  a  mo- 
ment and  then  the  curtain  would  be 
drawn  together  once  more  and  only  the 
clouds  were  to  be  seen.  To  me  this  is 
an  illustration  of  the  life  of  Jacob.  The 
sun  breaks  through  at  Bethel,  and  while 
this  seems  to  be  a  mixing  of  figures,  for 
the  hour  of  the  vision  was  in  the  night, 
yet  the  glory  of  Heaven  was  upon  him 
brighter  than  the  shining  of  the  sun.  It 
pushes  its  way  through  at  Peniel,  once 
more  appears  in  his  pathetic  love,  for  Jo- 
seph, and  later  in  his  dignified  appearance 
in  the  presence  of  Pharaoh,  but,  for  the 
most  part,  his  was  a  life  with  a  clouded  sky, 
and  yet  there  are  few  stories  more  inter- 
esting. What  Peter  is  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment Jacob  is  to  the  Old.  The  Bible  would 
hardly  be  complete  without  the  accounts  of 
these  two  remarkable  men.  When  we  read 
of  the  Saviour  of  Peter  we  are  comforted, 
for  we  find  ourselves  saying:  "If  Jesus  can 
save  such  a  man  as  Peter,  transforming  him 
from  the  fisherman  to  the  preacher,  from 
the  profane  man  to  the  writer  of  epistles, 
there  is  hope  for  every  one  of  us."  We 
read  about  the  God  of  Jacob  and  are  in- 
spired, for  there  are  few  of  us  to-day  whose 
lives  are  so  deceitful,  whose  characters  are 
so  questionable,  as  Jacob's,  and  yet  he  be- 
came Israel  the  Prince.  Is  anything  too 
hard  for  the  Lord? 

From  Bethel  to  Bethel  is  a  good  subject 
growing  out  of  such  a  text.  Thirty  years 
of  time  stretch  out  between  the  two  expe- 

Pastor  of  the  Fourth  Presbyterian  Church,  New  York. 
26 


riences,  and  yet  in  these  thirty  years  Jacob 
passes  through  much  that  is  beyond  ordi- 
nary interest,  as  for  example  his  experi- 
ences with  Laban,  when  he  toiled  fourteen 
years  for  his  beloved  Rachel,  the  prosperity 
which  came  to  him  both  by  fair  means  and 
foul,  his  struggling-  with  the  angel  at  Jab- 
bok's  Ford,  and  his  tarrying  at  Shechem 
contrary  to  the  command  of  God,  for  in  it 
all  he  was  never  satisfied,  for  I  hold  it  true 
that  if  one  has  once  been  to  Bethel  nothing 
else  can  satisfy,  and  if  we  have  ever  had  a 
vision  of  Heaven  the  earth  ever  afterward 
seems  dull  and  uninteresting. 

After  all  this  varied  experience  Jacob  is 
at  Bethel  once  again.  It  is  not  much  in  it- 
self, just  a  long  range  of  hills  running  north 
and  south ;  the  eastern  slope  descending  to 
the  Jordan  and  the  western  slope  stretching 
away  towards  the  more  thickly  populated 
part  of  the  country.  Through  the  valley 
before  us  illustrious  travelers  in  all  the  his- 
tory of  the  Holy  Land  have  made  their 
journey,  and  up  the  rough  mountain  road 
people  have  climbed  with  great  delight. 
There  is  no  house  in  sight  and  no  animals 
are  to  be  seen,  excepting  now  and  then  an 
eagle  or  a  wild  mountain  goat,  but  to  Ja- 
cob it  was  a  sacred  place.  There  the  first 
night  of  his  flight  from  Esau  he  saw  the 
ladder  which  linked  earth  to  Heaven,  the 
ladder  which  was  thronged  with  angels  per- 
forming their  heavenly  ministry,  and  he 
heard  the  voice  of  God.  There  are  some 
words  we  cannot  speak  without  arousing 
the  tenderest  emotions  and  the  holiest  mem- 
ories. Mother  is  such  an  one.  I  well  re- 
member preaching  to  a  crowd  of  rough 
miners  in  the  mountains,  holding  their  in- 
terest passably  well  until  I  spoke  this  match- 
less word,  when  all  faces  were  softened  and 
tears  were  seen  in  many  eyes.  Home  is 
another  such  word.  You  doubtless  remem- 
ber the  soldiers  at  Sebastopol,  brave  men 
who  were  ready  to  die,  many  of  whom  did 
die,  bursting  into  tears  as  they  heard  the 
band  of  musicians  playing  "Home,  Sweet 
Home."  and  Bethel  was  such  a  word  to  Ja- 
cob. It  stirred  the  best  that  was  in  him 
and  was  the  summons  of  God  bidding  h^s 
better  nature  arouse  itself. 

We  have  all  of  us  had  our  Bethels. 
Some  of  us  are  separated  from  them  by 
the  dreary  lapse  of  time,  and  between  those 
happy  days  and  our  present  unsatisfactory 
experience,  days,  weeks,  months  and  even 
years  stretch  out,  we  say  it  to  our  shame. 
For  some  of  us  an  active  business  life  has 
separated  us  from  Bethel,  and  yet  this  is 
positively    unnecessary.      "Not    slothful    in 

27 


business,  fervent  in  spirit,  serving  the 
Lord,"  and  if  there  is  anything  in  your 
business  that  dampens  your  spiritual  ardor, 
or  bHnds  your  vision  of  Christ,  either  your 
business  is  wrong  or  vou  are  wrong  vour- 
self. 

With  some  of  us  a  foreign  residence  Hcs 
between  us  and  Bethel.  Back  in  the  old  coun- 
try we  were  most  faithful  and  devoted  to 
Cnrist  and  constantly  serving  the  church, 
but  in  this  free  land  we  have  forgotten  our 
vows,  we  have  made  the  fatal  mistake  of 
leaving  God  out  of  our  calculations,  and 
somehow  seem  to  forget  the  words  of  the 
psalmist,  "If  I  take  the  wings  of  the 
morning  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of 
the  earth  and  the  sea  thou  art  there."  We 
might  have  been  in  fellowship  with  God 
all  these  days  if  we  would. 

With  some  of  us  it  is  worldliness  that  has 
dimmed  our  vision  and  robbed  us  of  power, 
and  that  is  the  sad  part  of  the  story.  Obli- 
gations once  taken  upon  us  have  been  over- 
laid and  burdened  with  the  lapse  of  years, 
and  I  would  like  if  I  might,  to  touch  the 
harp  of  memory  and  bring  back  those  happy 
days  once  more  when  our  vision  of  Christ 
was  unclouded,  our  appropriation  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  complete  and  our  joy  inex- 
pressible, so  therefore  I  say,  "Let  us  arise 
and  go  to  Bethel."  I  would  like  to  carry 
}0u  back  perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  century 
when  you  left  your  home  like  Jacob  and 
you  said,  "If  God  will  I  will."  All 
these  years  He  has  been  near  to  you,  pour- 
ing out  upon  you  His  best  blessings.  I  ask 
you,  have  you  kept  your  vow? 

Many  Christians  suffer  from  spiritual 
declension ;  they  scarcely  realize  it,  the 
stupor  has  come  on  so  gradually,  and  it  is 
only  on  a  day  like  this,  when  they  compare 
what  they  are  with  what  they  once  were, 
that  they  realize  their  dangerous  position. 
VV^e  do  not  come  to  be  like  Judas  in  a  day, 
or  even  like  Peter,  but  wc  leave  our  Lord 
by  inches,  some  little  sin  creeps  in  at  which 
wc  smile  to-day  but  which  defeats  us  to- 
morrow, and  we  are  out  of  tune,  we  have 
lost  our  power,  we  are  not  what  wc  want  to 
be  ourselves,  and  if  our  hearts  condemn  us 
God  is  greater  than  our  heart  and  knoweth 
all  things.  We  need,  therefore,  to  go  back 
to  Bethel. 

Where  was  your  Bethel  ?  Perhaps  in 
some  little  church  wliere  on  a  certain  occa- 
sion you  forgot  the  minister  and  the  one 
sitting  by  your  side  and  had  a  vision  of 
glory;  or  .in  some  home  where  poverty 
abounded,  but  you  were  utterly  unmindful 
of  it.     The  house  was  filled  with   heaven. 


and  down  to  every  pillow  was  sent  the  lad- 
der, up  and  down  which  angels  of  God 
made  their  way.  Or  it  may  have  been  in 
some  other  land  where  you  naa  a  vision  of 
God,  and  while  we  may  not  make  the  jour- 
ney back  to  these  places  in  the  flesh,  we 
can  go  back  in  thought  and  meet  Him. 
Shall  we  not  do  so  ?  As  many  as  God  loves 
He  reminds  constantly  of  neglected  duties, 
sometimes  using  conscience,  sometimes  His 
providences ;  to-dav  in  the  loss  oi  property 
He  speaks,  to-morrow  in  the  departure  of 
health,  again  in  the  death  of  a  friend.  It 
would  be  a  good  thing  if  we  should  stop 
and  listen  to  His  warning  and  then  aris2 
and  go  to  Bethel. 

Some  Preliminary  Steps. — Before  we 
may  ever  expect  to  go  back  to  the  place 
of  blessing  it  will  be  necessary  for  us  to 
observe  the  instructions  which  Jacob  gave 
to  his  household. 

First:  "Put  away  the  strange  gods," 
that  is  literally,  "the  god  of  the  strangers." 
They  have  been  living  with  the  enemies  of 
God's  people,  and  little  by  little  the  gods  of 
these  people  had  gotten  possession  of  them. 
They  were  taken  into  their  tents  and  then 
into  their  hearts,  and  they  were  out  of  fel- 
lowship with  God.  Wherever  there  is  a 
fungus  growth  in  the  forests  there  is  cor- 
ruption and  decay,  wherever  there  is  an 
idol  in  the  heart  there  is  a  fresh  indication 
of  weakness,  and  we  cannot  hide  our  idols, 
they  refuse  to  be  hidden.  When  we  least 
expect  it  there  is  a  resurrection. 

What  is  an  idol?  It  may  be  a  very  little 
thing.  That  which  tends  to  usurp  an 
luidue  place  in  our  affections,  which  gives 
us  more  pleasure  than  the  thought  of  God, 
is  an  idol.  The  thing  is  our  life  which 
makes  us  sacrifice  nearness  to  God,  which 
may  not  necessarily  be  sinful,  only  ques- 
tionable, is  an  idol.  That  which  makes  us 
indifferent  to  spiritual  advantages  and  in- 
different to  Bethel  is  an  idol.  Your  repu- 
tation, your  fortune,  that  unworthy  friend 
upon  whom  you  lavish  your  affection,  these 
may  be  idols,  for  "no  man  can  serve  two 
masters,  for  either  he  will  hate  the  one  and 
love  the  other,  or  will  cleave  to  the  one  and 
depart  from  the  other." 

Therefore  put  away  the  strange  gods, 
and  if  we  really  want  to  be  near  to  God 
how  easy  it  will  be  to  find  out  the  thing 
that  hinders  us,  and  yet  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
who  can  put  away  his  idols?  I  cannot,  I 
am  sure,  but  there  is  a  deliverance.  Do 
you  remember  the  story  of  David  and  Na- 
than, when  David  forgets  that  he  is  a  king 
and  a  father  and  sins,  and  Nathan  is  the 
29 


messenger  of  God  who  comes  to  rebuke 
him  with  the  touching  story  of  the  ewe 
lamb.  When  David  acknowledges  his  sin 
Nathan  immediately  responds,  "The  Lord 
also  hath  put  away  thy  sin,"  and  there  is 
in  this  expression  a  reference  to  the  scape- 
goat of  the  Old  Testament  on  the  day  of 
atonement,  when  the  priest  confesses  the 
sins  of  the  people  and  the  goat  was  repre- 
sented as  staggering  away  under  the  load  of 
Israel's  sins,  down  through  the  valley,  up 
the  mountain  yonder  until  he  is  lost  to 
sight,  and  then  finally,  according  to  tradi- 
tion, is  pushed  over  into  the  abyss  where 
no  man  is.  He  can  put  away  our  sins  on 
whom  the  Lord  hath  laid  our  iniquity. 

Second :  Be  Clean. — This  refers  to  in- 
ner cleanliness  which  is  only  brought  about 
by  the  indwelling  of  Cnrist.  God  puts 
awav  our  sins,  it  is  true,  when  He  forgives 
us,  but  it  is  one  thing  to  be  set  right  con- 
cerning the  guilt  of  sin  and  quite  another 
tnnig  to  be  set  free  from  the  pollution  of 
sin.  This  second  privilege  is  ours  when 
Christ  comes  in  to  dwell  with  us.  We  are 
very  much  afraid  of  the  word  "holiness," 
in  preaching  and  teaching,  yet  we  have  as 
much  of  holiness  as  we  have  of  Christ,  no 
more  and  no  less.  Let  us  be  clean  in  the 
heart.  This  is  possible  by  the  Word  of 
God  which  is  cleansing  in  its  very  touch. 
Let  us  be  clean  in  what  we  say,  making  a 
covenant  with  Christ  to  guard  our  lips. 
Asking  Him  to  keep  our  eyes,  let  us  not 
do  the  things  that  will  grieve  the  Spirit, 
remembering  that  God  can  only  use  that 
which  is  clean. 

Third :  Let  us  Change  our  Garments. — 
This  must  refer  to  the  outward  practices  of 
our  life.  In  other  words,  our  habits.  What 
is  the  garment  we  are  wearing  to-day? 
With  some  of  it  is  a  robe  of  our  own  weav- 
ing, the  robe  of  selfishness  and  pride,  and 
mark  you  this,  where  self  comes  into  a  life 
Christ  passes  out.  There  is  another  robe 
which  we  may  wear  to-day,  woven  in  the 
loom  of  Heaven,  bearing  the  red  mark  of 
the  blood  of  Christ. 

Do  you  remember  the  story  of  the  fatlier 
and  the  prodigal,  where  the  boy  returned 
from  his  wanderings  clad  in  rags,  and  the 
father  said  to  his  servant,  "Bring  forth  the 
best  robe  and  put  it  on  him."  I  used  to 
think  it  was  a  robe  beautifully  embroidered, 
but  not  so.  One  of  our  best  Greek  schol- 
ars has  said  it  means,  "Bring  forth  the  same 
old  robe  he  used  to  wear  and  put  it  on  him, 
the  robe  he  wore  when  he  was  as  my  son, 
living  up  to  the  privileges  of  his  position, 
so  that  he  mav  know  that   he   is   restored 


again,"  and  this  is  what  we  need  to  have 
put  around  us ;  the  robe  we  wore  at  Bethel, 
when  we  walked  in  fellowship  with  God  and 
had  a  vision  of  Qirist. 

In  Ephesians  Paul  says,  "Put  off  the  old 
man,  put  on  the  new  man,"  and  then  tells 
us  to  "keep  putting  away  sin."  This  is  the 
position  of  us  here  to-day.  Oh,  that  we 
might  change  our  garments  !  In  the  twenty- 
second  of  Matthew  and  the  eleventh  verse, 
when  the  King  came  into  the  wedding  feast 
He  rebuked  the  man  without  a  wedding 
garment.  He  who  had  been  rebuked  was 
speechless.  How  can  we  stand  before  Him 
without  the  robe  of  His  righteousness? 

Never  until  Jacob  came  back  to  the  place 
where  he  had  slept  with  the  pillow  of  stones 
underneath  his  head,  to  the  very  spot  where 
he  had  seen  God,  did  he  receive  blessing. 
And  it  is  interesting  to  note  in  the  sixth 
verse  that  when  he  came,  his  family  came 
with  him.  As  the  head  of  the  house  goes 
the  family  will  usually  go. 

Mr.  Moody  used  to  tell  the  story  of  the 
man,  backslidden  for  thirteen  years,  who 
came  into  his  meeting  and  got  back  the  old 
feeling  for  Christ,  and  then  determined  to 
seek  his  family,  but  he  found  that  in  thir- 
teen years  they  had  wandered  away  from 
Christ  and  he  came  back  to  the  great  evan- 
gelist to  say  in  an  agony  that  every  one 
of  them  had  lapsed  into  infidelity. 

I  traveled  the  other  day  with  a  mission- 
ary from  Wisconsin  who  told  me  how  he 
had  reached  a  drunken  man  in  the  woods 
of  Wisconsin,  told  him  the  story  of  Christ 
and  won  him,  and  later  had  the  joy  of  re- 
ceiving the  man  and  the  six  members  of 
his  household  into  the  fellowship  of  the 
church.  When  Noah  entered  the  ark,  his 
family  went  with  him.  Let  us  arise  and  go 
up  to  Bethel. 

Results. — First,  in  the  fifth  verse  we  read 
that  the  people  were  afraid  of  Jacob  and  his 
company,  for  the  terror  of  the  Lord  was 
upon  them.  Matthew  Henry  has  said  that 
"when  sin  was  in  Jacob's  house  he  was 
afraid  of  his  neighbors,  but  when  the  idols 
were  put  away  his  neighbors  were  afraid 
of  him."  When  shall  we  learn  the  lesson 
that  we  have  power  over  men  by  the  way  of 
God.  The  world  does  not  fear  a  worldly 
Christian,  nor  does  the  devil,  and  we  need 
expect  no  triumph  over  men  until  we  have 
first  prevailed  with  God. 

Second : — God  appeared  and  talked  with 
Jacob.  This  we  read  in  verses  nine  and  ten. 
Of  course,  no  man  can  see  God  as  He  is 
and  live.  Moses  asked  this  of  God  and 
He  said :  "I  will  put  thee  in  the  cleft  of  the 


rock  and  cover  thee  with  my  hand  while  I 
pass  by,''  and  he  saw  the  glory  of  the  gar- 
ments of  God  and  His  face  did  shine,  but 
we  can  see  Christ,  and  when  we  behold  Him 
in  His  tenderness  with  little  children  and 
His  ministering-  to  the  sick  and  suffering 
everywhere,  we  hear  Him  say,  "He  that 
hath  seen  me  hath  seen  my  Father  also." 
God  still  speaks  so  to  us ;  if  we  did  but  have 
our  ears  open  we  should  find  Him  speaking 
in  nature. 

I  can  remember  as  a  boy  out  in  the  coun- 
try holding  my  ear  up  against  the  telegraph 
pole  and  listening  to  what  was  told  me 
was  the  whirr  of  the  messages  flashing  from 
city  to  city,  and  I  used  to  wonder  if  it  might 
be  possible  for  someone  to  hear  what  might 
even  then  be  passing  through  the  air,  and 
now  to-day  we  have  accomplished  this  in 
the  wireless  telegraphy,  and  if  we  did  but 
have  our  ears  open  I  am  sure  that  widi 
every  rising  sun,  with  every  running  stream, 
with  every  singing  bird,  with  every  thing 
in  nature  we  should  hear  God  speak. 

And  He  speaks  to  us  in  the  Bible,  but 
the  difficulty  with  us  is  that  we  have  not 
faith.  It  has  long  been  my  desire  to  own 
one  of  the  large  old  fashioned  clocks  used 
by  our  forefathers,  and  recently  it  became 
possible  for  me  to  gain  possession  of  one. 
The  works  are  perfect,  the  pendulum  is 
perfect,  and  the  whole  clock  is  a  thing  of 
beauty,  and  I  started  it,  but  the  pendulum 
would  swing  for  a  moment  and  then  stop 
and  I  thought  I  had  made  a  poor  bargain 
in  the  purchase  of  my  clock,  but  at  last  1 
discovered  there  was  a  little  catch  by  means 
of  which  the  pendulum  was  united  to  the 
works  and  I  started  the  clock  once  more  and 
it  is  keeping  perfect  time.  Here  is  this  old 
Book,  truer  than  ever,  if  that  were  possible, 
certainly  more  precious  than  ever.  We 
have  called  it  uninteresting;  we  have  let  it 
alone  when  we  might  have  been  listening 
to  its  Heaven-born  messages,  none  other 
than  the  voice  of  God,  if  we  had  but  had 
faith.  God  said  to  Jacob,  "I  am  God  al- 
mighty," and  that  was  enough  for  Him  to 
say.  "I  will  walk  with  thee."  'Tf  God  be 
for  us  who  can  be  against  us?" 

Third:  In  the  thirty-fifth  chapter  of 
Genesis  there  are  four  burials.  There  is 
the  burial  of  the  idols,  the  burial  of  Deb- 
orah, the  burial  of  Rachel  and  the  burial  of 
Isaac.  It  is  a  chapter  of  sorrow,  but  what 
a  difference  Bethel  must  have  made  in  the 
way  that  sorrow  was  endured.  I  stood  not 
long  ago  in  the  home  of  a  man  whose  child 
was  dead  and  I  heard  him  say,  although  he 
liad  once  been  a  Qiristian,  that  he  all  but 


hated  God,  and  I  recall  another  experience 
where  a  woman  with  a  breaking  heart  said, 
with  tears  flowing  down  her  face  that  was 
shining,  "The  Lord  gave  and  He  hath  taken 
away,"  and  she  was  dwelling  in  Bethel.  It 
is  a  beautiful  thing  to  know  that,  over  the 
body  of  Isaac,  Esau  and  Jacob  clasped 
hands  and  were  united  once  more.  If  we 
did  but  live  in  Bethel  old  differences  would 
be  put  away,  trying  experiences  would  be 
easily  met. 

Come  let  us  arise  and  go  to  Bethel.  We 
have  all  of  us  had  Bethel  experiences,  so 
let  us  go  back  and  pray  as  we  used  to  prav, 
work  as  we  used  to  work,  and  preach  as  we 
used  to  preach,  and  the  heavens  will  be 
opened  above  us. 


>--'^pi. 


^9y- 


y 


y 


H  Call  to  Ipersonal  Service. 

IRev.  IClilton  /Ifterle  Smitb,  5).  2). 

lyUKE  x:  2. 

'Che  harvest  truly  i$  great,  but  the  laborers  are  few:  pray  v« 
therefore  the  Cord  of  the  harvest,  that  Re  would  send  forth 
laborers  into  fiis  harvest." 


I 


HAVE  here  a  little  rhyme  which 
was  once  sent  out  to  his  people  by 
a  ministerial  friend  of  mine,  which 
I  will  read  to  you : 


What  kind  of  a  church  would  my  church  be 
If  every  member  was  just  like  me? 

These  lines  may  suggest  several  questions 
to  our  minds.  If  all  the  members  of  my 
church  were  just  like  me,  would  the  church, 
as  a  whole,  please  the  Master?  What  kind 
of  a  prayer  meeting  would  there  be  if  every 
member  always  did  exactly  as  I  do?  How 
about  the  Sunday  School,  if  everybody  fol- 
lowed my  example?  How  much  money 
would  there  be  in  the  church  treasury  if 
all  the  rest  gave  just  as  I  do?  What  would 
the  unconverted  people  that  come  to  church 
do  and  say,  and  what  about  the  unsaved 
relatives  and  personal  friends  of  the  mem- 
bers, if  the  latter  were  all  like  me? 

I  remember  reading  a  certain  dream  that 
Dr.  A.  J  Gordon,  of  Boston,  now  gone  to 
his  reward,  once  had. 

He  thought  he  was  in  his  pulpit,  when 
he  saw  a  stranger  enter  the  church  with  one 
of  his  deacons,"  beside  whom  he  took  a  seat. 
There  was  nothing  special  about  his  dress 
to  distinguish  him  from  others  in  the  con- 
gregation, but  yet  his  face,  and  especially 
his  eyes,  continually  drew  the  doctor's  at- 
tention to  him  during  the  progress  of  the 

Pastor  of  the  Central  Presbyterian  Church,  New  York. 
34 


sermon,  every  point  in  which  was  closely 
followed  by  the  stranger.  At  the  close  of 
the  service  Dr.  Gordon  went  up  to  the  dea- 
con and  said,  "Who  was  that  stranger  in 
your  pew  with  you  to-day?" 

"That  was  Jesus  Christ,  of  Nazareth." 

Dr.  Gordon  said  that  the  influence  of  that 
dream  never  departed  out  of  his  life,  and 
that  he  never  went  into  the  pulpit  after  that 
without  seeing  Jesus  of  Nazareth  sitting 
in  the  congregation. 

"I  begin  to  ask  myself  whether  Jesus 
Qirist  liked  that  sermon  that  I  preached — 
whether  it  was  really  preached  for  His 
glory  or  not.  I  wonder  what  He  thought 
of  the  music  and  the  paid  quartette,  and 
the  high-faluting  anthems  they  sang;  of 
the  way  I  read  the  Scriptures ;  and  what  was 
His  opinion  of  the  way  I  scolded  the  peo- 
ple about  the  small  attendance  at  the  Fri- 
day prayer  meeting." 

If  Jesus  Christ  came  to  take  charge  of 
the  church  to  which  you  and  I  belong  would 
He  be  satisfied  with  the  way  in  which  we 
do  our  parts  in  the  church  work?  No 
doubt  He  would  find  the  building  filled  with 
very  respectable  people,  but  don't  you  think 
that  He  would  want  us  to  go  out  on  Tenth 
and  Eleventh  avenues  and  Avenue  A? 

I  do  not  believe  that  in  any  way  the 
church  of  to-day  shows  the  mind  of  Christ, 
as  He  looked  out  over  the  great  unsaved 
multitude  and  longed  for  their  salvation. 
See  Him  weeping  over  Jerusalem  and  say- 
ing: "Oh,  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  which  kill- 
eth  the  prophets,  and  stoneth  them  that  are 
sent  unto  thee;  how  often  would  I  have 
gathered  thy  children  together,  as  a  hen 
doth  gather  her  brood  under  her  wings,  and 
ye  would  not !"  As  He  utters  these  words, 
see  the  great  scalding  tears  falling  down 
His  cheeks.  I  find  nothing  in  my  own 
heart  or  in  the  hearts  of  my  church  that 
corresponds  to  that  great  agony  of  desire 
that  this  city  should  be  saved. 

Then  see  Him  sending  out  the  twelve  on 
their  mission  of  mercy,  and  later,  the  seven- 
ty— the  latter  lay  workers  as  distinguished 
from  the  twelve.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that 
the  instructions  given  to  the  seventy  were 
almost  identical  with  those  given  to  the 
apostles.  They  were  to  do  the  work  of  the 
ministry,  haling  men  and  women  and  say- 
ing that  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  nigh. 

Is  there  any  sense  in  which  you  and  I  are 
in  any  way  near  the  mind  of  Christ  in  His 
anxious  longing  for  the  salvation  of  souls? 

In  the  Sistine  Chapel  in  Rome  is  a  great 
painting  by  INIichael  Angelo  of  the  Last 
Judgment,    before    which    thousands    have 

35 


stood  in  awe.  Let  me  tell  you  that>  the 
twenty-fifth  chapter  of  Matthew  is  our  Sis- 
tine  Chapel,  and  we  ought  to  be  more  im- 
pressed with  the  picture  presented  there 
than  anybody  could  ever  be  who  looks  at 
the  Italian  painter's  masterpiece  in  the  Vati- 
can. 

The  marvel  is  that  when  we  are  to  stand 
before  Christ  the  thing  we  are  going  to 
meet  is  not  whether  we  have  been  pure  in 
heart  and  life,  or  whether  our  business  has 
been  done  honestly.  The  paramount  ques- 
tion is  involved  in  the  verse :  "I  was  an 
hungered,  and  ye  gave  Me  no  meat ;  I  was 
thirsty,  and  ye  gave  Me  no  drink ;  I  was  a 
stranger,  and  ye  took  Me  not  in;  naked 
and  ye  clothed  Me  not ;  sick,  and  in  prison, 
and  ye  visited  Me  not,"  and  the  important 
thing  will  be  whether  you  and  I  have  given 
the  bread  and  water  of  life  to  the  multitudes 
in  their  starving  condition  of  soul,  without 
Christ  and  the  hope  of  His  salvation. 

Let  me  paint  from  the  Scripture  the  mind 
of  the  Church  as  contrasted  with  the  mind 
of  Christ.  On  one  occasion  He  said  to  cer- 
tain people:  "Ye  seek  Me,  not  because  ye 
saw  the  miracles,  but  because  ye  did  eat  of 
the  loaves,  and  were  filled."  Why  are  you 
a  Christian?  If  you  have  any  interest  in 
Christianity,  is  it  because  of  anything  you 
can  put  into  it  or  because  of  something  that 
you  can  get  out  of  it  ?  That  is  the  question. 
Are  you,  spiritually,  a  "rice"  Christian,  as 
some  mission  converts  in  Asia  are  called? — 
that  term  being  meant  to  imply  that  the  per- 
son professes  Christianity  for  the  sake  of 
some  temporal  advantage.  Yes,  many  of 
you  are.  Is  it  not  the  purple  and  fine  linen 
of  religion  that  many  of  you  seek?  I  do 
not  say  that  the  hope  of  reward  in  Christi- 
anity is  altogether  an  unworthy  one,  for 
Jesus  Himself  held  it  up  before  us.  But  as 
compared  with  the  all-consuming  desire  for 
souls  that  we  ought  to  have,  it  is  a  com- 
paratively ignoble  motive. 

If  your  religion  is  chiefly  based  on  a  de- 
sire to  get  to  Heaven  that  is  only  another 
way  of  saying  that  you  are  seeking  the 
loaves  and  fishes  of  the  next  world  instead 
of  this. 

Multitudes  of  people  are  still  ignorant  of 
Christ,  and  I  say,  "What  is  there  in  your 
religion  or  mine  that  can  so  recommend  it 
to  them  that  they  shall  leave  their  darkness 
and  superstition  to  embrace  it  ?" 

I  remember  once  hearing  Edward  Everett 
Hale  say  in  a  Unitarian  convention — and 
my  cheeks  flushed  with  shame  as  he  said  it : 
"The  trouble  with  a  good  many  orthodox 
people  is  that  they  are  so  much  concerned 
36 


about  saving  their  own  little  souls,  many  of 
which  are  so  small  as  hardly  to  be  worth 
sa^^ing,  that  they  care  very  little  about  the 
souls  of  anybody  else."  But  if  we  get  near 
the  mind  of  Christ  and  enter  into  the  pas- 
sion of  His  heart  for  the  salvation  of  men, 
we  shall  hardly  have  time  to  think  about 
ourselves  at  all. 

In  the  fifteenth  of  Luke  there  is  an  ap- 
palling revelation  of  the  heart  of  only  too 
many  professors  of  religion.  In  that  chap- 
ter there  are  three  parables  and  after  each 
there  comes  a  sort  of  refrain.  If  you  look, 
you  will  see  that  after  each  of  the  first  two 
there  is  a  statement  of  the  importance  at- 
tached in  Heaven  to  the  salvation  of  souls. 
The  seventh  verse  says  "joy  shall  be  in 
Heaven"  and  the  tenth  verse  speaks  of  the 
joy  of  the  angels,  when  a  sinner  turns  to 
God.  When  I  looked  for  a  corresponding 
refrain  after  the  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  I 
could  not  find  one  at  all  at  first,  but  at 
length  I  discovered  it — in  these  verses : 
"And  he  was  angry,  and  would  not  go  in : 
therefore  came  his  father  out,  and  entreated 
him.  And  he  answering,  said  to  his  father, 
Lo,  these  many  years  do  I  serve  thee, 
neither  transgressed  I  at  any  time  thy  com- 
mandment ;  and  yet  thou  never  gavest  me  a 
kid,  that  I  might  make  merry  with  my 
friends :  But  as  soon  as  this  thy  son  was 
come,  which  hath  devoured  thy  living  with 
harlots,  thou  hast  killed  for  him  the  fatted 
calf." 

What  a  difference  in  the  pictures !  In 
Heaven  appreciation  of  what  it  means  for  a 
soul  to  be  lost,  and  joy  over  its  being  saved; 
but  on  earth  utter  failure  to  care  whether 
men  are  saved  or  lost. 

If  we  had  the  mind  of  Christ  on  this 
matter  we  should  be  able  to  see  the  great 
field  that  lies  before  each  one  of  us.  If  we 
had  one-tenth  of  the  Master's  longing  for 
the  salvation  of  the  people  our  buildings 
would  soon  be  filled  with  the  seeking  souls 
who  are  now  absent  from  all  churches. 

If  there  is  one  thing  more  than  another 
for  which  we  should  pray  it  is  for  a  great, 
overwhelming,  baptism  of  the  mind  of 
Christ,  so  that  we  can  see,  as  He  saw,  what 
the  "lostness"  of  a  soul  really  means.  If 
we  could  only  realize  the  depth  of  those 
words :  He  "took  upon  Him  the  form  of  a 
servant  and  *  *  *  humbled  Himself,  and 
became  obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death 
of  the  cross,"  we  should  substitute  real 
genuine  service  for  much  of  the  unreality 
of  our  present  lives. 

The  trouble  with  the  church — with  you 
and  me  as  Christians — is  that  we  have  not 

37 


one-tenth  the  willingness  to  suffer  and  to  do 
the  hard  things  that  He  had.  It  is  because 
of  our  supineness  and  unwillingness  to  suf- 
fer sacrifice  that  the  work  Jesus  wants  us  to 
do  is  never  done.  Our  feeling  in  such  mat- 
ters was  accurately  expressed  by  Peter  in  his 
words  to  Christ  when  the  latter  was  speak- 
ing of  the  things  he  should  suffer  in  Jerus- 
alem :  "Be  it  far  from  Thee,  Lord !"  or  as 
the  margin  has  it,  "Spare  Thyself,  Lord." 

When  during  an  earthly  war  some  desper- 
ate undertaking  has  to  be  carried  through, 
in  which  not  one-third  of  those  who  take 
part  in  it  are  expected  to  survive,  thous- 
ands of  men  will  volunteer  for  it  without 
a  moment's  hesitation  as  soon  as  the  call 
for  volunteers  is  issued,  although  they 
know  that  their  action  is  almost  certain  to 
involve  tears  and  agony  and  blood  and 
death. 

Do  you  remember  that  awful  verse  in 
Malachi :  "If  ye  offer  the  blind  for  sacrifice, 
is  it  not  evil?  and  if  ye  offer  the  lame  and 
sick,  is  it  not  evil  ?"  The  Israelites  were  told 
to  bring  to  God  for  sacrifice  the  very  best 
they  had,  and  we  ought  to  do  the  same. 
Yet  some  of  us  seem  to  think  that  anything 
is  good  enough  for  God,  and  wc  bring  Him 
the  lame  or  blind  lamb  instead  of  that  which 
has  no  blemish.  We  give  Him  the  little 
when  we  might  give  Him  the  great.  We 
take  up  a  cross  that  is  so  small  that  we  can 
hardly  feel  it,  w^hen  we  ought  to  carry  one 
that  should  make  our  knees  stagger  beneath 
its  size  and  weight. 

Years  ago  I  went  to  a  jeweler's  store  be- 
cause I  wanted  to  buy  a  beautiful  stone. 
He  showed  me  a  very  fine  specimen,  and 
then  he  fetched  out  from  a  drawer  another 
stone,  and  much  larger,  although  very  sim- 
ilar to  the  first.  He  said  that  I  could  have 
the  second  for  the  same  price  as  the  first, 
because  it  had  a  small  flaw  in  it ;  though 
he  added  that  this  flaw  was  so  small  that  a 
microscope  would  be  needed  in  order  to 
detect  it. 

Of  course,  I  instantly  rejected  the 
thought  of  giving  to  the  person  so  dear  to 
me  a  jewel  that  had  any  imperfection  at  all, 
and  purchased  the  perfect  one.  How  often 
the  stnnc  wc  give  to  God  is  the  one  with  the 
flaw  in  it !  We  do  not  find  the  most  bril- 
liant jewel  we  can  buy  and  lay  that  on  His 
table;  but  we  bring  Him  some  half-hearted 
compromise  with  flaws  in  it  instead. 

I  had  a  friend  who  went  gunning  in  the 
mountains  of  Tennessee;  and  as  he  had  no 
dog,  a  little  bare-legged  boy  belonging  to 
one  of  the  mountaineer  families  went  with 
him  to  pick  up  the  birds.     Every  time  the 


gun  went  off  away  the  little  fellow  would 
go  into  the  bushes  after  the  bird,  his  legs 
soon  becoming  all  torn  and  bleeding  from 
the  thorns  and  brambles  through  which  he 
passed.  My  friend  asked  him  what  he  was 
going  to  do  to  them.     "Nothin'." 

"But  don't  they  hurt?" 

"You  bet  they  do." 

"Well,  what  are  you  going  to  do  about 
it?" 

"Jest  let  it  hurt." 

And  as  the  gun  went  off  again,  away 
went  the  boy  to  fetch  the  bird  last  brought 
down. 

That  is  the  kind  of  philosophy  we  want 
in  the  service  of  God ;  and  only  when  the 
churches  come  to  that  "jest-let-it-hurt"  spirit 
will  their  best  be  laid  upon  the  altar  of  God. 

I  want  to  lay  on  you  the  burden  and  re- 
sponsibility of  personal  work  for  souls.  The 
Seventy  were  sent  into  people's  houses  to 
hale  men  and  women  and  tell  them  that  the 
Kingdom  of  God  was  nigh  unto  them — to 
do  hand-to-hand,  heart-to-heart  and  face- 
to-face  work. 

In  London  there  is  a  place  called  Toynbee 
Hall,  to  which  students  and  others  go 
to  try  to  help  and  benefit  the  people  who 
live  in  its  vicinity.  The  leading  thought 
there  is  that  it  is  of  little  use  to  try  to  lift 
up  humanity  in  the  mass,  but  that  it  is  well 
worth  while  to  take  one  man  or  one  family 
in  hand  and  continue  steady,  patient  effort 
to  make  that  man  or  that  family  a  center 
of  light  and  happiness.  The  trouble  with 
us  is  that  we  have  been,  and  are  still,  try- 
ing to  lift  up  people  in  masses  instead  of  as 
individuals.  If  we  could  only  get  any  good 
proportion  of  the  members  of  this  congre- 
gation to  see  the  value  of  personal  work  for 
Christ  and  to  engage  in  it,  there  is  no  know- 
ing what  the  results  might  be,  or  where 
those  results  might  stop. 

When  I  was  pastor  in  Cleveland  I  tried 
to  do  a  little  work  in  that  way  myself. 
About  a  block  and  a  half  from  my  church 
lived  a  foreman  employed  on  one  of  the 
large  papers.  He  and  his  family  were  avow- 
edly skeptical.  One  day  I  called  and  in- 
vited the  folks  to  come  to  church.  I  had  a 
chilly  reception.  Next  week  I  called  again. 
This  time  the  skepticism  of  the  father  was 
plainly  announced  and  doubt  expressed  as 
to  his  acceptance  of  the  invitation.  The 
third  time  there  was  a  little  thawing  out. 
The  fourth,  fifth,  sixth,  seventh  and  eighth 
visits  followed,  and  on  the  Sunday  evening 
following  my  ninth  call  I  had  the  satisfaction 
of  seeing  the  man  and  his  wife  coming  and 
take  a  back  seat  in  the  church.     Before  the 

39 


year  was  up  I  had  the  joy  of  receiving  that 
man  and  his  wife,  and  the  only  child  big 
enough  to  take  the  step,  as  members  into 
the  church. 

Did  it  pay  ?  Soon  after  that  episode  I  was 
called  to  New  York,  and  five  years  passed 
before  I  returned  to  Cleveland,  and  stood 
again  in  the  old  church.  There  was  a  great 
congregation  before  me,  and  when  I  went 
into  the  pulpit  I  looked  up  into  the  galleries 
for  these  friends  of  mine,  but  could  not  see 
them.  I  looked  about  in  different  parts  of 
the  church,  but  could  not  discover  them. 
I  began  to  wonder  whether  they  had  drifted 
off  to  some  other  city  or  not,  when,  after 
looking  in  about  every  other  part  of  the 
church,  I  saw  them  sitting  in  the  very  front 
seat. 

At  the  close  of  the  service,  the  first 
hands  I  shook  were  theirs,  and  when  I 
asked  if  they  had  been  faithful  during  my 
absence,  the  father  said  he  did  not  think 
they  had  missed  a  service  since  I  went  away, 
and  that  now  all  the  children  were  members 
of  the  church. 

Anything  you  can  do  for  souls  by  sym- 
pathy and  hard  work  pays.  Yes,  it  does. 
And  that  is  the  only  thing  that  does  count 
to  any  practical  extent  in  the  church.  You 
may  go  regularly  to  the  prayer  meeting  and 
do  a  little  good  to  those  who  go  there.  You 
may  be  faithful  and  upright  in  business  and 
set  a  good  example  to  the  few  who  are  under 
you  in  that.  But  when  you  become  real 
greedy  for  souls,  and  work  for  them  con- 
tinually, then  your  influence  and  power  for 
good  are  felt  not  only  all  through  your 
church  but  far  beyond  it. 

Once  in  Cleveland  I  was  called  tx)  conduct 
the  funeral  of  a  lady  who  died  at  the  age 
of  ninety-four.  Gathered  together  there 
were  forty-six  of  her  descendants,  every  one 
of  whom  was  an  earnest  Christian — some  of 
them  being  among  the  foremost  workers  of 
my  church.  One  of  them  said  to  me,  "We 
owe  it  to  her  that  we  are  Christians  to-day 
— to  her  earnest  prayers,  faithful  words  and 
consistent  life."  I  wondered,  as  I  heard 
that,  whose  hand  it  was  that — many,  many 
years  before ! — had  pointed  a  young  girl  to 
Tesus  with  such  excellent  results,  extending 
over  nearly  a  century,  and  larger  and  more 
far-reaching  than  ever  before. 

Do  you  suppose  that  Peter  Bohler  realized 
what  he  was  accomplishing  through  his 
personal  dealing  with  John  Wesley,  that 
young  Church  of  England  clergyman  ?  He 
really  founded  Methodism— that  magnifi- 
cent cliurch  that  has  never  been  false  to  her 
T.ord. 


And  in  the  conversation  between  Stan- 
pitz  and  Martin  Luther  lay  the  whole  of 
that  mighty  Reformation  accomplished  by 
"the  solitary  monk  that  shook  the  world." 

Nobody  can  possibly  know  all  that  it 
means  to  try  to  lead  a  soul  to  Christ,  and 
if  we  are  willing-  to  work  for  Him  He  will 
surely  bless  our  efforts. 

I  am  not  fond  of  talking  about  my  per- 
sonal experience,  but  some  of  it  may  be 
helpful. 

During  my  junior  year  at  Princeton  Col- 
lege, a  day  was  appointed  to  pray  for  col- 
leges and  universities,  and  a  special  conse- 
cration meeting  was  convened  for  enrolling 
those  who  would  undertake  to  speak  to  at 
least  one  of  the  men  in  college  about  his 
soul.  I  was  a  Christian  then,  but  only  a 
poor,  miserable,  nominal  specimen,  and 
when  this  consecration  meeting  was  fixed  I 
took  good  care  not  to  attend  it. 

Next  day  there  was  a  wonderful  service. 
Dr.  Taylor,  then  pastor  of  the  Broadway 
Tabernacle,  preached  from  the  text  "He 
shall  baptize  you  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
with  fire."  He  preached  so  that  the  fire 
entered  into  my  soul,  and  made  me  the  most 
miserable  man  in  the  college.  The  sermon 
was  followed  by  a  meeting,  in  which  about 
twenty  men  belonging  to  my  own  class 
talked. 

After  the  meeting  one  of  my  friends  asked 
me  why  I  had  not  been  at  the  consecration 
meeting  the  day  before.  I  said  I  had  had  to 
study.  That  was  a  lie.  My  friend  said, 
"Ldon't  believe  it.  The  fact  is  you  haven't 
got  any  grit  or  any  courage  in  your  religion, 
and  I  don't  believe  you've  got  very  much 
at  all  even  of  that."  He  went  on  talking 
to  me  for  an  hour  or  so  along  that  line  till 
I  felt  about  as  small  as  my  little  finger ;  and 
I  never  felt  meaner  in  my  life  than  I  did  as 
I  went  up  the  steps  to  my  room  on  the  third 
story. 

As  I  reached  the  second  story  I  saw  the 
light  shining  in  the  room  of  a  classmate. 
He  was  the  son  of  the  mayor  of  an  impor- 
tant city,  and  was  a  skeptic  as  to  religion. 

I  knocked  at  his  door,  earnestly  hoping 
that  he  was  out.  But  he  was  not  out,  and 
when  I  got  inside  the  room  I  closed  the  door 
behind  me  and  stood  with  my  back  to  it. 
I  don't  know  which  of  us  looked  the  most 
astonished.  Then  I  blurted  out,  "Eddie,  I 
don't  see  why  you  are  not  a  Christian  !"  He 
looked  at  me  with  a  look  of  surprise  and 
said :  "Do  you  know  I'm  very  glad  you 
came  in  ?  I've  been  thinking  about  that  very 
thing  all  this  day." 

I  did  my  best  to  lead  him  to  Christ,  and 


the  next  day  sent  somebody  to  talk  to  him 
who  had  had  more  experience  than  I. 

Three  days  later  he  confessed  Christ  be- 
fore the  world. 

Two  years  ago  I  shook  hands  with  him 
in  a  distant  city  where  he  is  an  officer  in  a 
Presbyterian  church. 

There  was  a  reunion  not  long  ago  of  my 
old  class  of  twenty-five  years  ago.  There 
were  fifty-five  of  us  present.  Among  those 
I  met  was  the  former  captain  of  the  baseball 
nine.  I  was  the  pitcher,  when  we  were 
both  at  college.  He  was  then  somewhat  pro- 
fane and  drank  a  little,  loo.  I  felt  I  could ' 
speak  to  almost  any  man  at  Princeton  about 
religion  except  Dave. 

One  night  Dave  said  to  me  "Why  have 
you  never  asked  me  to  be  a  Christian  ?"  He 
cried  and  I  cried  and  to-day  he  is  preaching 
the  Gospel. 

Are  you  willing  to  try  to  do  some  of  this 
personal  work  for  the  glory  of  God  and  the 
building  up  of  His  church?  There  is  no- 
thing that  the  church  needs  so  much,  and  I 
would  like  to  know  whether  you  are  going 
to  take  everything  that  God  gives  you,  but 
not  give  Him  in  return  anything  that  really 
costs  you. 

It  is  over  blood  and  tears  and  sacrifice 
that  you  walk  to  glory.  Will  you  not  give 
some  service  and  make  some  sacrifice  that 
others  may  meet  you  there? 

If  so,  begin  at  once  to  do  some  personal 
work  for  Jesus.  God  grant  that  the  mind 
of  the  Master — longing  for  the  salvation  of 
the  city — may  be  yours,  and  that  the  sacri- 
fice of  Christ,  which  caused  Him  to  give  His 
blood  for  men,  may  at  least,  in  some  slight 
degree,  be  your  sacrifice.    Amen  ! 


Che  mcrk  of  Soul  Ulinntng, 


TRcv.  5obn  :ffialcom  Sbaw,  ®.  5). 

Proverbs  x  :  30. 
"Re  that  winnetb  souls  is  wise." 

THE  Revised  Version  renders  it  : 
"He  that  is  wise  winnetli  souls." 
Either  of  those  statements  is  true, 
whichever  rendering  you  take. 
The  man  that  is  wise  will  win 
souls  if  he  be  truly  wise,  and  only  he  that 
is  wise  can  win  souls.  In  other  words,  there 
is  a  secret  to  this  work,  and,  like  all  of  God's 
secrets,  it  is  known  only  to  them  that  fear 
Him.  May  the  Holy  Spirit  guide  us  this 
afternoon  as  we  seek  to  know  the  secret  of 
soul  winning. 

First  and  last  there  can  be,  of  course,  only 
one  secret  of  soul  winning,  and  that  is  the 
Holy  Spirit's  co-operation  with  us.  Without 
His  aid  our  mightiest  effort  will  be  im- 
potent, and  with  His  help  our  weakest  effort 
will  be  omnipotent;  and,  speaking  again 
fundamentally,  there  is  only  one  thing  that 
conditions  the  Holy  Spirit's  co-operation 
with  us,  and  that  is  our  co-operation  with 
Him.  As  dear  old  Dr.  Spencer,  of  Brook- 
lyn, himself  one  of  the  greatest  winners  of 
souls  in  his  time,  used  to  say  when  he  was 
speaking  to  pastors  who  were  seeking  an 
awakening  work  of  grace  in  their  churches : 
"Be  sure  that  you  co-operate  with  the  Holy 
Spirit."  So  that  our  inquiry  as  to  what  is 
the  secret  of  soul  winning  resolves  itself 
into  this  one  basic  inquiry :  Wherein  does 
our  co-operation  with  the  Holy  Spirit  con- 
sist? And  I  think  I  will  answer  that  ques- 
tion under  three  heads. 

First,  we  co-operate  with  the  Holy  Spirit 
when  we  yield  ourselves  to  His  influence 
and  become  the  personal  subjects  of  His 
gracious  operation.    Otherwise,  what  are  we 

Pastor  of  the  West  End  Presbyterian  Church,  New  York 
43 


doing?  We  are  resisting  the  Holy  Spirit, 
and  what  is  resistance  but  the  very  opposite 
of  co-operation? 

Secondly,  we  co-operate  with  the  Holy 
Spirit  when  we  share  His  purpose,  and  share 
it  so  truly  and  so  deeply  that  it  stirs  our 
being  to  its  depths,  and  fires  us  as  with  an 
all-controlling  and  consuming  passion.  If 
that  be  not  the  case,  then  in  our  purpose 
our  face  is  in  one  direction  and  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  His  great  impelling  purpose  has 
His  face  in  the  opposite  direction.  We  are 
at  variance,  and  there  can  be  no  co-operation 
between  us. 

Thirdly,  we  co-operate  with  the  Holy 
Spirit  when  we  join  Him  actively  in  His 
work,  for  a  co-operation  that  is  only  nega- 
tive is  no  co-operation  at"  all.  I  believe  we 
shall  discover  the  secret  of  the  Lord  in  this 
matter  along  those  three  paths. 

Friends,  I  believe  it  with  my  soul,  and  I 
believe  it  so  that  I  am  willing  to  act  it  out, 
that  we  must  go  to  the  people.  H  they  will 
not  come  to  the  church,  we  must  carry  the 
church  to  them.  Let  us  have  our  tents ;  let 
us  hire  our  theatres ;  let  us  go  to  the  race 
grounds  and  to  the  fair  grounds,  anything 
that  is  legitimate,  in  order  to  bring  the  life- 
saving  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  to  dying  men 
around  us. 

Plrst  of  all,  we  co-operate  with  the  Holy 
Spirit  when  we  yield  ourselves  to  His  in- 
fluence and  become  the  personal  subjects  of 
His  gracious  operation.  How  true  it  is  that 
we  go  out  to  ask  men  to  come  to  Christ, 
when  we  have  really  not  truly  accepted 
Christ  ourselves.  How  true  it  is  that  many 
a  man  who  has  attempted  to  be  a  winner 
of  souls  has  urged  men  to  have  absolute 
faith  in  Christ,  and  his  whole  life  lias  been 
one  unbroken  piece  of  unbelief.  And  how 
true  is  it  that  we  have  enjoined  men  to  make 
full  surrender,  and  we  have  not  known  what 
surrender  is  ourselves.  Now  can  there  be 
anything  more  devitalizing  spiritually  than 
that?  It  will  not  only  sap  a  man  of  his 
power,  but  sap  a  man  of  his  sense  of  power 
to  be  conscious  of  inconsistency.  Why,  it 
is  like  leakage  to  a  vessel ;  it  is  like  escaping 
steam  to  an  engine ;  it  is  like  a  defective 
wire  to  an  electric  current ;  and  if  this  sense 
of  inconsistency  aflfects  us  in  this  way,  how 
nuich  more  does  it  affect  the  men  around 
us  that  we  arc  trying  to  bring  to  Christ. 
I  think  that  inconsistency  is  the  highest 
stumbling  block  that  many  people  around 
us  have  to  fall  over  before  they  get  into  the 
kingdom  of  God.  You  let  a  man  be  able  to 
pick  you  out  and  say,  "Physician,  heal  thy- 
self," and  not  only  will  he  be  sure  to  say 

44 


it,  but  the  fact  which  enables  him  to  say  it 
will  render  him  utterly  unsusceptible  to 
your  influence  and  to  your  work. 

And  if  it  affects  others  and  affects  our- 
selves, then  how  must  it  affect  God?  A 
man  who  has  never  himself  put  away  sin, 
God  can  never  use  to  call  other  men  out  of 
sin.  A  man  who  has  not  himself  abso- 
lutely surrendered  to  Christ  can  never  be- 
come the  apostle  of  surrender  to  other  peo- 
ple ;  and  he  who  is  living  in  union  with  the 
world,  rather  than  in  separation  from  the 
world,  is  obstructing  and  not  conducting 
the  flow  of  Christ's  grace  into  his  life,  and 
out  from  his  life  into  other  lives. 

Therefore,  dear  friends,  I  believe  that 
before  any  of  us  can  become  effective  and 
fruitful  soul  winners,  we  must  yield  to  the 
threefold  conviction  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  so 
far  yield  to  His  conviction  of  sin  that  we 
have  put  sin  absolutely  and  forever  out  of 
our  hearts  and  lives ;  so  far  yield  to  His 
conviction  of  righteousness  that  God's  will 
is  our  will,  and  we  rest  in  it,  and  we  sur- 
render to  it;  and  so  far  yield  to  His  con- 
viction of  judgment  to  come  that  here  and 
now  we  are  drawing  the  line  of  separation 
which  divides  the  followers  of  Christ  from 
the  adherents  of  Satan.  In  other  words, 
we  cannot  be  winners  of  souls  unless  we 
are  clean  men  and  women,  unless  we  are 
surrendered  men  and  women,  unless  we  are 
separate  men  and  women.  Aye,  it  costs  to 
win  men  to  Christ.  It  costs  sometimes  the 
thing  which,  humanely  speaking,  is  the 
dearest  to  us,  and  the  reason  why  we  fail 
in  the  effort  is  because  we  are  unwilling  to 
pay  the  cost. 

A  friend  of  mine  has  only  recently  re- 
turned from  a  tour  around  the  world,  and 
he  has  a  great  deal  to  say  about  the  con- 
version of  a  cannibal  chief  down  in  the 
South  Sea  Islands,  whom  he  met  and  ad- 
mired when  he  was  visiting  that  part  of 
the  world.  The  old  chief  was  truly  con- 
verted, and,  like  a  man  truly  converted,  he 
immediately  became  a  missionary,  and  he 
took  his  dugout  canoe  and  rowed  in  and  out 
among  those  islands  to  preach  Christ  to  his 
fellow  cannibals.  But  after  a  while  he 
thought  he  ought  to  have  a  better  boat  than 
the  dugout  canoe,  and  he  came  to  the  Amer- 
ican missionary  and  said  he  wished  that  he 
could  have  a  boat  like  his,  and  the  Ameri- 
can missionary  said :  "Why,  I  will  sell  you 
mine ;  I  haven't  much  use  for  it."  He  sold 
him  his  American  boat,  and  the  chief  sailed 
in  and  out  among  the  natives,  and  the  na- 
tives looked  at  him  and  thought  it  was  a 
fine  thing  to  be  converted  to  this  religion, 

45 


that  there  were  certain  earthly  advantages 
attaching  to  it;  and  he  began  to  reahze  it, 
and  it  began  to  affect  him  spiritually  and 
bring  the  flesh  back  into  control,  and  he 
came  back  after  the  course  of  a  few  weeks 
to  the  missionary  and  said :  "I  have  brought 
back  the  boat."  The  missionary  said: 
"Why,  what  is  the  trouble?  Do  you  want 
your  money  back?"  "Not  a  cent  of  it;  it 
isn't  for  that  reason  I  bring  it  back."  "Is 
it  because  she  isn't  seaworthy"  "Not  for 
a  moment ;  she  is  a  splendid  boat ;  I  wish  I 
could  keep  her,  but  I  can't  keep  her." 
"Well,  what  is  the  trouble?"  "Ah,"  he  said, 
"I  want  to  tell  you  that  when  I  sit  in  that 
boat  and  sail  in  and  out  among  my  fellow 
cannibals,  I  see  them  looking  at  me,  and 
it  brings  back  the  old  cannibal  feeling.  I 
shall  go  back  to  the  cannibal  life  in  less 
than  a  year  if  I  keep  my  boat ;  I  must  give 
up  my  boat."  Dear  friends,  there  are  some 
of  us  that  will  have  to  give  up  our  boat. 
I  don't  know  what  yours  is ;  I  think  I  know 
what  mine  is.  I  trust  that  any  one  of  us 
who  desires  to  be  a  winner  of  souls  will  not 
make  the  mistake  of  keeping  his  boat  and 
expecting  to  be  successful  in  bringing  men 
to  Jesus  Christ.  You  will  have  to  search 
your  hearts  for  yourselves. 

I  well  remember  when  it  seemed  to  me 
that  the  Master  almost  visibly  started  up 
the  steps  of  the  throne  of  my  heart  and 
life.  I  can  see  Him  as  if  He  were  photo- 
graphed before  me,  and  I  can  see  Him  this 
morning,  with  His  right  foot  on  the  first 
step  up  to  the  throne,  looking  up  into  my 
face  and  saying,  "Shall  I  come  farther? 
Here  is  where  you  have  kept  me  all  the  rest 
of  your  life.  May  I  come  to  my  rightful 
place?"  And  1  said:  "Lord  Jesus,  ascend 
the  throne  and  take  the  sceptre,"  and  new 
life  came  to  me,  and  I  verily  believe  a  new 
anointing.  Dear  friend,  can  you  get  any 
such  vision  of  Christ  beneath  the  influence 
of  the  meeting  this  morning  as  that?  Is 
Christ  in  control  over  your  life?  Have  you 
allowed  Him  to  come  into  only  a  part  of  it, 
and  He  is  still  waiting  to  have  absolute 
control?  Let  Him  come  to  the  throne  this 
morning.  Give  up  your  boat,  whatever  it 
costs  you,  and  let  Christ  have  His  rightful 
place.  You  will  never  be  a  winner  of  souls, 
believe  me,  until  you  give  up  your  boat, 
whatever  that  boat  may  be. 

Now  may  we  turn  to  the  second  part 
which  I  outlined,  namely,  in  order  to  co- 
operate with  the  Holy  Spirit  in  such  a  way 
as  to  insure  your  success  in  the  winning  of 
souls,  you  must  share  His  purpose ;  share 
it  truly  and  share  it  fully,  so  that  it  becomes 
46 


a  consuming  purpose,  a  passion,  in  other 
words.  Now  that  is  the  great  purpose  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  We  are  all  agreed  upon 
that.  He  has  but  one  great  purpose  in  the 
world,  and  that  is  to  bring  the  world  to  the 
foot  of  the  Cross.  Wherever  He  works  and 
in  whatsoever  way  He  works,  that  is  His 
passion,  and  we  must  have  it  before  we 
shall  share  His  purpose.  How  far  have  we 
that  purpose  so  that  we  can  call  it  our  pas- 


sion 


You  say,  "Why,  I  have  that  purpose,  and 
that  purpose  is  in  command  in  my  life.  I 
give  to  these  things ;  I  am  interested  in 
them ;  I  pray  for  them ;  I  seek  the  advance- 
ment of  the  church  and  the  advancement  of 
Christ's  kingdom."  You  may  do  all  that, 
and  yet  not  be  in  the  purpose  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  That  is  theoretical;  what  about  the 
practical  thing?  I  confess  that  as  I  go  up 
and  down  throughout  our  country — and  I 
have  done  a  good  deal  of  it  this  last  year 
in  an  effort  to  awaken  some  of  the  churches 
of  our  own  denomination  to  the  duty  of 
this  thing — I  am  more  and  more  impressed 
with  the  absence  of  a  passion  for  souls.^  I 
do  not  find  it  among  church  people  as  I  be- 
lieve I  ought  to  find  it.  I  surely  do  not 
discover  it  among  many  of  our  church  offi- 
cers, and  even  among  our  church  women, 
as  I  think  it  should  be;  and  I  frequently 
find  much  of  it  absent  from  the  preaching 
of  the  day,  the  old  love  of  souls  that  used 
to  take  hold  of  the  church  and  stir  it  until 
it  would  break  out  in  those  wonderful  re- 
vivals back  in  the  years  that  some  of  us 
remember,  and  remember  well,  and  we  have 
been  longing  for  a  return  of  those  days  ever 
since. 

I  do  not  know  why  it  is  absent.  Some  tell 
me  it  is  because  of  Universalism  that  has 
grown  up  in  the  church,  in  which  increas- 
ingly so  many  people  do  not  believe  they 
need  to  be  brought  to  Christ  in  order  to  be 
saved;  and,  do  you  know,  I  half  believe  it. 
Sometimes  I  am  told  that  it  is  the  commer- 
cialism of  the  age,  in  which  even  church 
people  are  elevating  the  seen  and  deterior- 
ating the  unseen,  after  the  gold  that  itself 
is  eluding  them,  as  well  as  better  treasures 
that  they  ought  to  be  after.  Sometimes  I 
am  told  that  it  is  the  secularism  of.  the  day, 
the  worldliness  of  the  church,  so  that  there 
isn't  any  longer  in  a  great  many  churches 
any  line  that  separates  the  world  from  the 
church ;  it  is  all  rubbed  out ;  worldliness 
honeycombing  our  churches  in  the  country 
as  well  as  the  city;  and  I  sometimes  think 
that  is  true.  And  then  I  have  been  told — 
and  I  half  believe  that — that  it  is  the  selfish- 

47 


ism,  the  religious  selfishism  of  the  day ;  and 
there  is  a  great  deal  in  that. 

I  have  often  felt  that  we  were  altogether 
too  willing  to  sing  our  way  into  the  better 
and  sweeter  and  higher  things  in  Christ, 
to  the  forget  fulness  of  the  world  around  us, 
and  that  wc  were  contented  if  we  could  get 
the  good  felling  in  our  hearts,  and  we  forgot 
all  about  the  men  and  women  that  were 
dying  all  around  us.  But  whatever  be  the 
cause,  I  know  that  until  the  church  gets  its 
passion  for  souls,  there  will  be  no  wide- 
spread awakening  and  there  will  be  no 
fruitful  ingathering  of  souls  to  Jesus 
Christ. 

It  is  the  difficulty  of  the  church  to-day. 
We  have  advanced  along  missionary  lines 
splendidly;  along  sociological  lines,  with 
our  church  houses  and  their  equipments, 
with  our  various  organizations.  We  have 
advanced  along  humanitarian  and  benevo- 
lent lines,  but  we  have  not  advanced  these 
years  one  step  along  this  line,  and  that  is 
where  I  put  my  finger  upon  many  hearts 
that  perhaps  are  just  before  me  this  morn- 
ing. 

When  I  see  old  Christmas  Evans,  on  his 
way  to  the  meeting,  the  schoolhouse  where 
he  was  to  preach  that  night,  and  preach  a 
sermon  for  souls,  tying  his  horse  to  a  sap- 
ling by  the  way,  and  literally  throwing  his 
face  upon  the  ground  and  staying  there 
until  sunset;  when  I  see  Charles  G.  Finney 
out  in  the  haymow  all  night  praying,  asking 
his  host  to  let  him  sleep  in  the  barn,  rather 
than  sleep  in  a  comfortable  bed  in  the  house, 
and  he  on  his  knees  all  night  praying  for 
power  with  souls  the  next  night;  when  I 
see  our  own  dear  Dwight  L.  Moody  in  those 
great  hippodrome  meetings  in  New  York 
city,  anxious  to  get  through  the  service  in 
the  big  auditorium,  where  he  was  dealing 
with  the  multitude,  in  order  that  he  might 
get  into  the  inquiry  room  and  deal  with  the 
individual ;  and  when  I  read  in  the  life  of 
George  Macgregor,  recently  published  by 
his  cousin,  this  remarkable  statement  in  that 
chapter  entitled,  "A  Passion  for  Souls," 
that  there  was  probably  not  an  hour  of  the 
day  in  all  the  last  years  of  his  life  when 
a  passion  for  souls  did  not  present  itself 
consciously  and  consumingly  to  his  heart, 
I  know,  dear  friends,  what  is  the  matter 
with  me,  and  I  think  I  know  what  is  the 
matter  with  a  good  many  of  you.  It  is  a 
lack  of  a  passion  for  souls.  When  we  see 
the  world  dying,  as  Christ  saw  it,  when  He 
looked  out  from,  the  Calvary,  and  when  we 
feel  for  that  world  as  Christ  felt  for  it 
when  He  set  His  feet  to  go  to  Jerusalem, 


and  stopped  not  until  He  had  gone  to  the 
end  of  His  Hfe  and  given  it  up  for  the  ran- 
soming of  dying  men  and  women,  when,  in 
other  words,  we  have  something  of  His  pas- 
sion for  the  wolrd's  salvation,  then  we  will 
become  winners  of  souls,  and  not  until  then. 
May  God  breathe  that  passion  into  our 
hearts  to-day.  Away  with  our  religious 
selfishness,  away  with  the  honeycombing 
of  universalism  in  the  church,  away  with 
worldliness  in  your  life  and  mine,  away 
with  the  commercialism  that  is  shackling 
your  hands  and  feet  alike,  and  the  inbreath- 
ing and  inflowing  of  that  love  of  Christ 
for  the  world  which  will  send  us  out  to  be 
successful  winners  of  souls. 

Now  just  a  moment  along  the  third  path, 
which  is  this  :  that  if  we  would  co-operate 
with  the  Holy  Spirit,  we  must  join  Him  in 
His  work.  Of  course,  there  are  various 
ways  in  which  we  may  thus  join  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  His  work.  The  various  lines  will 
suggest  themselves  to  you.  I  put  increas- 
ing accent  every  day  of  my  life,  upon  the 
life  of  the  people  of  God  before  and  among 
those  that  they  are  trying  to  bring  to  Christ. 
We  do  not,  as  a  rule,  put  a  strong  enough 
accent  there,  dear  friends : 

"Thou  must  thyself  be  true. 

If  thou  the  truth  wouldst  teach. 
Thy  soul  must  overflow. 

If  thou  another  soul  wouldst  reach. 
It  takes  the  overflow  of  heart. 
To  give  the  lips  full  speech." 

You  let  a  man  sincerely  live  the  life  of 
Christ  before  others,  and  it  is  a  tremen- 
dous drawing  power  Calvaryward.  Oh, 
that  we  might  realize  it.  I  know  it  is  a 
truism ;  I  know  you  call  it  a  commonplace ; 
the  trouble  is,  it  has  come  to  be  a  common- 
place in  our  thought,  and  in  our  experi- 
ence; that  is  the  trouble.  Our  lives  count 
for  more  than  we  dream  of  every  day. 
You  cannot  win  a  boy  in  your  home  be- 
fore whom  you  are  not  living  the  true 
Christian  life.  You  cannot  win  a  scholar  in 
your  Sunday-school  class  if  you  are  living 
a  life  that  does  not  honor  Qirist,  while  you 
are  trying  to  win  such  a  scholar.  It  is  im- 
possible. May  it  be  impressed  upon  us 
anew  to-day. 

And  then  what  shall  we  do  as  a  means 
of  co-operating  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  join- 
ing Him  in  His  work?  You  know  the  old 
adage  ran :  "To  labor  is  to  pray."  I  turn 
that  around  and  say,  "To  pray  is  to 
labor."  I  said  to  my  people  last  fall, 
when  we  started  out  on  a  campaign 
for  souls,  if  I  could  have  ten  men 
who  would   give  themselves   altogether  to 

49 


active  service,  or  ten  men  who  would  give 
themselves  altogether  to  prayer,  I  would 
choose  the  latter.  Do  3^ou  know  why?  Be- 
cause when  I  go  out  to  work  myself  active- 
ly, God  simply  uses  my  arm;  my  hand  is 
withered,  and  He  restores  it,  and  then  uses 
that  human  hand.  But  when  I  go  out  to 
pray  for  souls  and  for  the  work  for  souls — 
I  speak  not  irreverently — I  use  God's  arm 
and  God's  hand.  What  shall  I  say  of 
preaching  the  Gospel?  Oh,  I  wish  that  I 
had  an  hour  to  speak  on  that  theme.  I  be- 
lieve that  as  a  rule,  speaking  to  my  fellow 
ministers,  that  we  haven't  preached  for 
souls  as  we  ought  to  have  done.  I  know 
some  of  our  people  will  say  to  us,  "I  do 
not  like  these  evangelistic  sermons."  Let 
them  say  on  along  that  line ;  let  us  keep  on 
with  our  evangelistic  sermons.  We  must 
preach  for  souls ;  we  must  preach  the  Gos- 
pel of  redemption  to  the  sinner;  we  must 
do  it  faithfully ;  we  must  do  it  as  effective- 
ly as  we  have  the  power  to  do. 

And  I  fear  that  not  only  are  we  not 
preaching  this  kind  of  a  Gospel  as  we 
should,  many  of  us,  but  that  we  are  not 
getting  the  men  to  preach  it  to,  and  we  still 
stick  to  our  old  methods.  What  we  want 
is  the  giving  up  of  a  great  deal  of  what  I 
call  conservatism  of  method,  ceasing  for 
a  while  and  being  willing  for  a  while  to 
give  up  our  dignity.  I  know  some  of  the 
other  churches  represented  here  have  not 
been  so  dignified,  thank  God,  as  the  Pres- 
byterian Church,  which  I  represent.  We 
are  traditionally  very  dignified  and  conser- 
vative and  conventional,  but  we  are  fast 
becoming  otherwise,  thank  God  again.  I 
believe  we  must  be  willing  to  give-  up  much 
of  this  dignity  in  order  to  get  hold  of  men. 

I  was  up  in  Albany  speaking  last  fall, 
and  as  I  climbed  the  hill  up  toward  the 
Capitol  to  the  hotel  where  I  was  going  to 
stay,  there  was  a  little  boy  crying  the  even- 
ing papers  with  all  the  voice  he  had,  and  I 
looked  around,  and  there  wasn't  another 
soul  to  hear  the  cry  but  myself,  and  I  didn't 
want  an  Albany  evening  paper.  Do  you  know, 
that  is  just  about  the  way  many  ministers 
are  preaching.  It  is  not  their  fault,  so  far 
as  their  preaching  is  concerned,  but  they 
are  calling  for  sinners  to  come  to  Christ, 
and  the  sinners  are  beyond  the  reach  of 
their  voice.  A  man  in  New  England  told 
me  when  I  was  speaking  along  these  lines : 

"I  want  to  emphasize  and  endorse  what 
you  said  about  this.  I  live  in  one  of  the 
chief  cities  in  Massachusetts,  right  across 
the  way  from  one  of  the  great  churches  of 
the  city,  having  the  best  preacher  in  the 


city,  having  the  best  music  in  the  city,  hav- 
ing the  handsomest  church  in  the  city,  hav- 
ing the  most  fashionable  church  in  the  city ; 
but  I  sit  on  mv  veranda  and  watch  that 
church  on  a  Sunday  night,  and  when  the 
windows  begin  to  be  open  I  see  people  pass 
down  the  street  and  stand  under  the  open 
windows  and  listen  to  the  singing  and  try 
to  get  the  voice  of  the  preacher,  and  pass 
on.  They  never  go  in;  and  all  that  music 
is  being  sung,  and  all  that  preaching  is  be- 
ing given  to  a  little  handful  of  people,  and 
the  crowd  is  surging  by." 

But  there  is  one  line  that  I  want  to  sug- 
gest much  more  emphatically  than  any 
other.  Dear  friends,  with  all  our  living  and 
with  all  our  praying,  and  with  all  our 
preaching,  I  believe  there  is  something  else. 
I  believe  that  something  else  is  needed  in 
order  to  render  any  one  of  those  effective, 
and  that  is  the  personal  touch,  what  we 
choose  to  call  in  these  days  personal  work, 
and  in  Avhich  we  are  altogether — and  I  fear 
all  of  us  altogether — too  neglectful,  person- 
al work  that  reaches  a  man  where  something 
else  has  failed  fully  to  reach  him.  I  be- 
lieve that  there  are  people  in  our  churches, 
as  ministers,  to  whom  we  are  preaching 
every  Sunday  that  are  unsaved  men,  and 
will  stay  unsaved  so  long  as  we  depend  upon 
our  preaching.  We  may  be  afraid  to  go 
and  speak  to  them.  That  man  is  the  presi- 
dent of  our  Board  of  Trustees,  that  woman 
is  one  of  the  social  leaders  of  our  church ; 
nominally  they  are  Christians,  but  they 
have  never  taken  a  stand  for  Christ;  they 
are  dishonoring  Him  openly  before  the  rest 
of  the  congregation. 

We  are  depending  on  our  sermons,  and 
our  sermons  are  proving  undependable ;  we 
need  to  say  the  word  to  such  men ;  and,  be- 
lieve me,  in  my  experience,  such  men  have 
been  surprised  for  years  that  we  have  never 
said  the  word  to  them.  They  have  won- 
dered why  we  haven't  come  and  talked  to 
them  on  the  subject  of  personal  religion,  as 
Dr.  Adams's  trustee  in  the  Madison  Square 
Church  was  surprised.  When  Dr.  Adams 
came  up  of  a  Sunday  night  after  the  ser- 
vice to  talk  with  him,  the  man  looked  him 
in  the  face  and  said : 

"Why  haven't  you  done  this  before?  For 
months  now  I  have  wondered  why  my  pas- 
tor never  said  a  single  immediate  and  per- 
sonal word  to  me  about  my  own  individual 
salvation."  Men  are  waiting  for  it,  and 
men  are  wondering  why  we  do  not  give  it. 

Did  you  ever  go  over  your  church  and 
pick  out  the  men  who  have  pews  and  the 
members  of  their  families  sitting  in  those 

51 


pews  ^Y,ho  were  unsaved,  and  hand  them 
over  to  your  officers  or  to  your  active 
church  women,  to  your  workers  who  were 
active  in  everything  else,  but  were  shrink- 
ing back  when  you  called  them  to 
real  spiritual  personal  service?  I  went 
over  my  pew  record  last  spring,  and 
I  made  up  a  list,  and  it  astonished 
me,  and  when  I  carried  it  to  my 
session,  the  governing  body  of  our  church, 
and  told  Elder  So  and  So  that  there  sat 
twenty  men  and  women,  or  young  men  and 
women,  right  around  him  in  church  Sunday 
after  Sunday,  that  had  never  confessed 
Christ,  and  asked  him  whether  he  had  ever 
spoken  to  Mr.  So  and  So  or  Mrs.  So  and 
So,  and  he  confessed  that  he  hadn't,  I  saw 
one  reason  why  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel 
wasn't  as  effective  as  it  ought  to  be  in  that 
church. 

How  about  that  boy  in  your  family? 
You  go  to  your  minister  and  you  say  to 
him  "I  don't  know  why  it  is  that  I  cannot 
get  hold  of  my  boy ;  won't  you  come  and 
talk  with  him  and  pray  with  him  ?"  and  you 
have  failed  to  say  the  personal  word  and 
give  the  personal  touch  in  tactfulness  and 
kindliness  and  persistence,  and  there  is 
where  your  whole  effort  and  your  whole 
aspiration  and  desire  have  broken  down, 
and  broken  down  at  your  own  door.  Per- 
sonal work,  it  is  the  summons  I  give  this 
afternoon.  I  have  no  other  summons  to 
give  to  the  Church  to-day.  Personal  work 
on  the  part  of  the  minister,  on  the  part  of  the 
church  officer,  on  the  part  of  the  Sunday- 
school  teacher,  on  the  part  of  the  rank  and 
file  of  our  membership,  and  until  we  have 
consecrated  ourselves  to  that  kind 'of  work, 
believe  me,  my  dear  friends,  we  shall  pray 
to  an  unanswering  Heaven  and  feel  not  so 
much  as  the  first  drops  of  rain  in  the  shower 
for  which  we  have  been  waiting  all  these 
years,  and  all  these  years  upon  years.  God 
makes  us  personal  workers. 

I  went  up  into  New  England  to  preach  my 
yearly  sermon  to  one  of  the  colleges.  A 
splendid  college  it  is,  and  there  is  a  strong 
religious  life  there,  though  not  enough,  it 
seems  to  me,  of  evangelistic  life,  and  cer- 
tainly not  enough  of  personal  work.  I 
preached  my  sermon  to  the  boys.  I  chose 
after  I  got  there  a  different  sermon  from 
what  I  had  expected  to  preach,  ignoring 
the  old  professors  back  on  the  last  pews 
and  their  cultured  families,  and  just  trying 
to  get  hold  of  the  boys'  hearts  with  a  very 
simple,  almost  commonplace  Gospel  mes- 
sage. I  had  preached  to  them  every  year 
for  years.  I  had  lived  among  these  boys, 
52 


for  whenever  I  go  there  I  stay  in  the  chapter 
house  of  the  fraternity  of  which  I  am  a 
member.  I  Hved  my  life  before  them.  I 
prayed  for  those  boys.  I  had  preached  to 
them,  as  I  say,  and  I  had  preached  my  best 
sermons  to  them  with  this  thing-  in  mind, 
the  best  Gospel  sermons  I  could  preach, 
but  many  of  them  in  my  own  chapter  of 
the  fraternity  of  which  I  am  a  member 
had  never  been  brought  to  confess  Christ. 
I  made  an  appointment  that  afternoon  in 
the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
Building,  where  I  would  meet  those  who 
wanted  to  talk  to  me  upon  the  subject,  and 
one  of  the  members  of  the  fraternity  chapter 
said: 

"I  will  go  and  show  you  the  way."  He 
knew  perfectly  well  that  I  knew  the  way; 
I  had  been  there  years  enough  to  know  the 
way,  and  I  thought  there  was  something  in 
the  wind.  I  took  him  along  with  me,  and 
when  we  got  up  into  the  room  I  said : 

"Now,  while  we  are  waiting,  suppose  we 
talk  upon  the  subject  of  religion."  T  saw 
his  eyes  begin  to  water;  I  knew  there  was 
something  behind  it ;  and  then  he  said : 

"Yesterday  was  my  twenty-first  birthday, 
and  I  got  such  a  letter  from  my  mother  in 
yesterday  morning's  mail;  it  just  broke  my 
heart  in  two.  She  said :  'Are  you  goin^ 
to  pass  your  twenty-first  birthday  and  not 
be  a  Christian?  I  cannot  bear  to  think  of 
it.  I  pray  of  you  to  give  your  heart  be- 
fore nightfall  to  Jesus  Christ.  I  have  sent 
this  letter  just  so  it  would  reach  you  in  the 
first  mail  in  the  morning,  that  you  might 
have  all  day  and  all  the  evening  to  think 
it  over ;  and  when  you  go  to  bed  won't  you 
just  kneel  down  and  give  yourself  to 
Christ?'  I  am  so  glad  you  have  spoken  to 
me;  it  is  just  the  time  to  speak  to  me,"  and 
we  got  down  on  our  knees  and  I  prayed  for 
the  fellow,  and  he  prayed  for  himself. 

The  next  morning,  when  I  was  on  the 
way  to  the  station  in  a  cab,  a  snowy  morn- 
ing, at  seven  o'clock,  he  stood  there  by  the 
roadside  waiting  for  the  cab  to  come  along. 
He  hailed  the  driver  and  stopped  it,  pulled 
the  door  open  with  a  great  jerk,  and  putting 
his  head  in,  said :  "It  is  all  settled,  I  set- 
tled the  matter  before  I  went  to  bed  last 
night,  and  you  don't  know  what  happiness 
is  in  my  soul."  Everything  else  had  failed 
but  personal  work.  O,  friends,  may  we  not, 
many  of  us,  trace  our  failure  back  to  the 
same  dereliction?  God  help  us  to  conse- 
crate ourselves  this  morning  to  personal 
work  in  our  homes,  in  our  social  circles,  in 
our  churches,  and  God  will  honor  the  per- 

53 


sonal    touch   which   we   give   in   His   name 
and  for  His  sake  every  time  we  use  it. 

Let  me  tell  you  the  story  of  the  death 
of  my  old  Adirondack  driver,  old  Harvey. 
He  had  driven  me  for  hundreds  of  miles 
over  those  mountain  roads ;  we  had  been 
about  everywhere  together;  and  I  had 
broached  the  subjest  of  religion,  as  we 
sometimes  say,  in  an  indirect  way ;  I  had 
gone  away  around  the  barn  to  talk  about 
these  things  to  him,  but  I  nad  never  until 
the  week  before  his  death  got  right  to  the 
point  of  trying  to  grip  his  soul  with  my  own 
personal  touch,  and  I  talked  to  him  in  a  low 
voice,  as  I  sat  on  the  front  seat  next  to  him 
all  that  drive  through,  about  becoming  a 
Christian.  I  didn't  make  very  much  prog- 
ress, but  I  said,  "I  am  going  to  preach  down 
in  the  mountain  church  next  Sunday  night." 
My  friend.  Dr.  Smith,  and  I  had  the  habit 
then,  as  we  have  this  summer,  of  preaching 
alternately  Sunday  nights,  just  to  the  guiiles 
and  the  mountain  people,  just  trying  to  get 
hold  of  those  among  whom  we  summer. 
It  was  my  turn  to  preach  the  next  Sunday 
night,  and  said:  "I  am  going  to  preach 
next  Sunday  night.  Won't  you  come  and 
hear  me? 

"Well,"  he  said,  "if  you  put  i'  that  way" 
— and  one  never  likes  to  put  it  that  way, 
and  yet  we  are  willing  to  be  all  things  to  all 
men,  and  even  to  put  down  our  modesty 
and  pride — "if  you  put  it  that  way,  I  will 
come." 

The  very  next  morning  one  oi  mv  neigh- 
bors in  the  mountains  said:  "Did  aou  hear 
that  Harvey  was  very  sick?"  I  said,  "No, 
I  will  go  and  see  him."  I  went  straight  to 
his  house,  and  the  son  said :  You  cannot 
see  him  this  morning.  He  is  critically  ill, 
and  the  doctor  said  no  one  must  go  in  but 
the  nurse."  I  went  the  next  day  and  he 
was  worse,  and  still  they  wouldn't  let  me 
in.  The  third  day  I  went,  and  the  little 
granddaughter  came  with  the  tears  rolling 
down  her  face  and  said :  "Grandpa  has 
just  died."  The  next  day  was  Sunday,  and 
that  day  I  went  down  to  the  mountain 
church,  and  I  preached  the  sermon  that  1 
had  prepared  with  Harvey  in  mind.  T  had 
imagined  him  sitting  in  the  pew,  and  my 
preaching  the  Word,  trving  to  p-et  the  seed 
into  the  soul,  but  old  Harvey  wasn't  there. 
And  do  you  know,  I  couldn't  see  those 
people:  that  was  just  what  might  be  called 
an  absent-minded  sermon ;  mv  mind  ran 
down  the  road  to  a  little  mountain  house 
where  old  Harvey,  m\-  Adirondack  driver, 
lav  cold  in  death. 

And    the    next    morning,    when    we   held 

54 


his  funeral  service,  and  they  asked  me  to 
take  part,  I  said,  "I  cannot  speak,  and  I 
cannot  pray,  even ;  I  do  not  feel  that  I  am 
worthy  to  go  to  the  throne;  1  will  just  read 
a  few  passages  of  Scripture."  When  I  fell 
in  line  with  the  country  folk,  trying  to  do 
what  they  do,  though  I  dislike  it,  and  walked 
around  his  casket,  as  I  drew  near,  the  plate 
on  it  disappeared,  I  didn't  see  that ;  I  don't 
think  I  saw  Harvey's  face — I  loved  him 
dearly,  too — but  I  saw  instead  the  inscrip- 
tion on  that  casket  put  there  by  divine 
hands,  and  it  read :  "A  lost  opportunity," 
and  though  I  am  sound  to  the  core  theo- 
logically, I  believed  then  and  I  believe  this 
day,  that  it  was  more  of  a  lost  opportunity 
to  me  than  it  was  even  to  old  Harvey. 
There  are  men  dying  down  in  your  town, 
and  over  in  your  little  country  village,  and 
in  yours,  and  in  yours,  and  in  every  case  it 
is  a  lost  opportunity. 


Supreme  IHottients  in  f)\imm  Eife. 

IRev.  ©eorse  C.  Xorimcr,  D.  D. 

Mark  vi :  22. 

*'J>$k  of  me  whatscevcr  tbou  wiJt,  and  1  will  9i»e  it  thee." 

Matt,  xv  :  28. 

"Be  it  unto  tbee  even  as  tbou  wilt." 

THESE  texts  bring  before  us  two 
monarchs — Herod  and  Jesus  ;  and 
two  women — the  one  a  daughter, 
the  other  a  mother.  Notably  great 
is  the  contrast  between  the  rulers. 
Herod,  lord  over  many  people,  was  slave 
to  his  own  passions  ;  and,  though  tetrarch 
in  outward  dignity,  was  basely  servile 
in  inward  spirit.  His  contemptibleness 
was  conspicuous.  He  was  self-willed, 
self-indulgent,  weak  and  wayward;  a  sov- 
ereign whose  animalistic  nature  was  en- 
grossed in  sensuality,  and  whose  govern- 
ment was  subordinated  to  personal  gain  and 
self-gratification.  How  dilTerent  was  Jesus. 
No  glittering  court  symbolizing  His  majes- 
ty, no  regal  insignia  asserting  His  author- 
ity, and  yet  the  native  grandeur  of  His  char- 
acter was  such  that  it  drew  obedient  sub- 
jects to  His  feet.  He  walked  the  earth 
crownless,  throneless — yea,  oftentimes  with- 
out a  place  in  which  to  rest  His  weary  head 
— and  still  the  multitudes  thought  they 
could  discern  beneath  the  peasant's  garb  the 
true  nobility  of  a  God-anointed  one.  He 
was  pure,  gentle,  sclf-forgctful,  self-sacri- 
ficing, swaying  a  scepter  in  which  the  jew- 
els of  love  studded  the  gold  of  power. 
While  these  monarchs  were  so  widely  sepa- 
rated from  each  other,  they  were  possessed 
of  large  resources,  gifts,  wealth,  honors, 
which  they  could  confer  on  the  deserving, 
or  on  any  who  should  secure  their  favor. 

The    affluence    of    the    Hcrodian    prince, 
however,  was  not  as  limitless  as  that  of  the 

Pastor  of  the  Madison  Avenue  Baptist  Church,  New  York. 
56 


princely  peasant ;  for  the  revenues  of  the 
former  were  bounded  by  the  capabiHties  of 
a  meagre  district  in  an  impoverished  land, 
while  those  of  the  latter  were  commensurate 
with  the  inexhaustible  treasures  of  the  uni- 
verse. The  first  could  only  say  to  his  favor- 
ite, "Ask  whatsover  thou  wilt,  and  I  will 
give  it  thee,  unto  the  half  of  my  kingdom," 
but  the  second  could  reply  to  his  importu- 
nate suppliant,  while  knowing  and  realizing 
the  boundlessness  of  human  desires,  "Be  it 
unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt."  One  could 
give  according  to  the  littleness  of  Judea,  and 
only  a  part  of  that;  the  other  according  to 
the  vastness  of  heaven,  and  all  of  that ; 
for  he  could  say,  what  Paul  subsequently 
wrote  for  the  joy  of  the  saints,  "I  am  able 
to  do  exceeding  abundantly  above  all  that 
you  ask  or  think"  ;  "for  all  things  are  yours ; 
whether  Paul,  Apolios,  or  Cephas,  or  the 
world,  or  life,  or  death,  or  things  present  or 
things  to  come,  all  are  yours ;  and  ye  are 
Christ's,  and  Christ  is  God's." 

Two  women  stand  before  these  poten- 
tates. In  Herod's  castellated  palace  a  feast 
has  been  given  to  soldiers  and  "chief  estates 
of  Galilee,"  and  during  the  merry  evening 
the  daughter  of  Herodias  has  danced  in 
presence  of  the  brilliant  company.  Her 
graceful  movements  and  her  graceless  free- 
dom, the  poetry  of  her  form  and  the  har- 
mony of  her  gestures,  have  quite  captivated 
heart  and  eye  of  the  luxurious  tetrarch. 
There  she  stands,  radiant  in  youthful  beau- 
ty, panting  for  breath ;  her  bosom  heaving 
with  excitement,  and  her  proud  eye  flashing 
the  consciousness  of  her  triumph.  Wanton 
creatures,  personally  attractive  and  gifted 
with  genius,  in  every  generation  have  been 
able  to  fascinate  the  affluent  and  the  great, 
and  have  sometimes  captivated  those  whose 
wisdom  and  age  should  have  lifted  them 
above  the  influence  of  such  Circean  charms. 
No  wonder,  then,  that  Herod  was  enchant- 
ed, when  so  many  better  men  have  yielded 
to  the  seductive  spell.  From  his  canopied 
throne  he  speaks — from  that  seat  where  jus- 
tice should  reign  in  calm  and  awful  majes- 
ty, but  which  is  now  usurped  by  fire-eyed, 
lawless  passion — he  speaks,  and  lays  at  the 
feet  of  a  giddy  girl  one-half  of  his  king- 
dom. Tlie  lives  of  his  people,  their  hard- 
earned  wealth,  their  homes  and  simple  joys, 
combined  with  office,  rank  and  power — the 
prizes  for  which  the  mighty  toil  and  strive 
• — are  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  frail 
daughter  of  a  notorious  mother. 

It  is  Salome's  opportunity,  the  decisive 
moment,  the  time  of  times,  which,  if  care- 
fully seized  and  wisely  improved,  will  im- 

57 


part  to  her  future  life  a  purer  lustre  and  a 
fairer  charm.  Surely  dancer  was  never 
more  highly  complimented,  and  surely  none 
ever  reached  a  more  important  crisis !  How 
will  she  choose?  How  will  she  avail  her- 
self of  her  unexpected  happy  fortune? 
What  will  she  demand?  What  gift  solicit, 
what  service  claim,  what  honor  seek?  Un- 
able to  decide,  too  much  agitated  to  rely  on 
her  own  weak  judgment,  she  hastens  to  her 
mother's  side  that  her  counsel  may  assist 
her  choice.  Leaving  for  a  little  while  her 
parent  to  point  out  the  way  in  which  the 
golden  opportunity  may  best  be  coined,  let 
us  glance  at  the  other  woman  who  has 
sought  the  favor  of  a  mightier  prince  than 
Herod. 

History  has  not  preserved  her  name ;  only 
Mark  records  that  she  was  a  Greek,  a  Syro- 
phenician,  one  of  a  race  despised  by  the 
self-righteous  Jews.  Evidently  she  was  not 
rich,  certainly  not  young,  and  her  heart  was 
burdened  with  a  heavy  load  of  care.  From 
her  humble  home  she  had  ventured  forth,  if 
possibly  to  meet  with  Him  whose  fame  as  a 
gracious  healer  was  spread  throughout  the 
whole  land,  and  who  in  His  compassion 
might  relieve  her  sore  distress  by  restoring 
her  afflicted  daughter.  She  found  Him  on 
the  borders  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  resting  in 
som.e  modest  house,  surrounded  by  His  dis- 
ciples, and  apparently  averse  to  give  her 
audience.  Thrusting  aside  every  obstacle 
in  her  way,  she  prostrated  herself  at  His 
feet  and  cried,  "O  Lord,  thou  Son  of  David ! 
my  daughter  is  grievously  vexed  with  a 
devil."  About  her  person  there  was  prob- 
ably nothing  attractive  but  her  earnestness, 
nothing  persuasive  or  interesting  but  her 
pathos.  Her  greeting  was  not  such  as  de- 
lighted Salome,  and  at  first  the  king  seemed 
inclined  to  scorn  her  suit.  His  answer  to 
her  impassioned  appeal,  "Lord,  help  me!" 
sounds  harshly  to  our  car,  and  to  her  must 
have  been  as  the  knell  of  all  her  hopes. 
Commentators  explain  that  He  employed 
such  language  to  test  her  faith  and  stimulate 
her  persistency;  and  if  they  are  correct, 
His  design  was  eminently  successful.  She 
would  not  be  silenced,  she  would  not  be 
thwarted;  coldness  could  not  chill  her,  in- 
ch tiference  could  not  discourage  her,  rude- 
ness could  not  subdue  her,  and  cruel  scorn 
could  not  daunt  her  indomitable  will. 

Before  such  energy  of  faith,  such  vigor 
of  determination,  such  insistency  of  appeal, 
the  king  could  not.  maintain  his  real  or  as- 
sumed attitude  of  rejection.  He  yielded: 
"Oh.  woman,  great  is  thy  faith!"  But  he 
does    not    accede    to   her    request — he   does 

5S 


more.  He  does  not  say  thy  daughter  shall 
be  healed.  That  had  been  to  bound  his 
favor,  to  measure  His  gift,  and  He  would 
honor  her  as  she  had  honored  Him.  "Be  it 
unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt."  That  was  His 
form  of  answer  to  her  petition,  an  answer 
implying  that  on  her  decision  the  future  of 
herself,  her  home  and  her  child  depended. 
She  had  but  to  will  what  she  desired,  and 
whether  it  was  the  restoration  of  her  daugh- 
ter, the  increase  of  her  worldly  goods,  or 
any  other  longed-for  blessing,  she  would  re- 
ceive the  same.  Her  golden  opportunity 
had  arrived.  The  crucial  moment  of  her 
life,  as  in  the  life  of  Salome,  had  come  at 
last,  and  her  own  choice  must  decide  the 
rest. 

It  is  Shakespeare' who  writes:  "There  is 
a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men,  which  taken  at 
its  flood  leads  on  to  fortune."  So  also 
Schiller  in  The  Piccolomeni : 

''Seize,  seize  the  hour, 
Ere   it  slips  from  you.     Seldom  comes  the  mo- 
ment 
In  life,  which  is  indeed  sublime  and  mighty." 

Never  was  there  truer  sentiment.  What 
we  have  seen  befall  these  women  is  but  a 
picture  of  what  is  sure  to  occur  in  every 
life.  Every  human  being  is  sooner  or  later 
brought  face  to  face  with  advantageous  cir- 
cumstances, which,  if  improved,  will  result 
in  manifold  blessings.  To  employ  a  current 
expression,  "every  man  has  his  chance" ;  his 
"chance"  to  free  himself  from  over-master- 
ing evil,  to  carve  for  himself  a  name  and 
place  in  this  busy  world,  and  a  "chance"  to 
rise  above  the  earthy  temper  of  his  spirit 
and  approach  to  the  heavenly  purity  of  the 
saved.  With  a  burst  of  virtuous  indigna- 
tion an  English  writer,  contemplating  the 
miserable  lot  of  thousands  of  our  fellow  be- 
ings in  the  world,  and  comparing  it  with 
what  may  possibly  be  their  condition  in  the 
great  hereafter,  exclaims,  as  though  singular 
in  the  conviction,  "I  believe  that  God  will 
give  every  man  a  chance."  I  do  not  ques- 
tion the  soundness  of  the  faith.  But  I  think 
we  are  too  much  inclined  to  the  opinion 
that  the  wretched  masses  of  people  who  ex- 
cite our  compassion  have  never  enjoyed  the 
opportunity  of  being  other  than  they  are, 
or  of  acting  differently  than  they  do ;  and 
that  what  has  been  denied  them  here  ought 
to  be  aft'orded  them  in  the  world  beyond. 
I  do  not  wish  to  discuss  in  this  discourse 
the  relations  of  the  present  to  the  future; 
nor  is  it  necessary,  for  it  is  clear  to  my 
mind  that  every  soul  in  the  course  of  its 
earthly   history    is   brought,    perhaps   more 

59 


than  once,  under  conditions  favorable  to  its 
highest  good. 

There  are  few  men  who  have  made  ship- 
wreck of  themselves,  who  have  gone 
through  a  series  of  years  from  disaster  to 
disaster,  and  who  have  been  a  snare  and  a 
curse  to  others,  who  cannot  on  looking  back 
see  where  they  have  made  fatal  mistakes, 
and  where,  if  they  had  acted  other  than 
they  did,  the  outcome  would  have  been  vast- 
ly different.  Who  is  there  that  cannot  re- 
call some  auspicious  moment  when  unseen 
hands  threw  open  wide  the  portals  to  suc- 
cess, when  a  competency,  if  not  affluence, 
was  placed  within  their  reach;  who  cannot 
remember  some  precious  season  when  the 
heart  was  moved  as  by  invisible  angels  to 
repentance,  and  when  aspirations  to  a  nobler 
and  purer  life  were  awakened  and  almost 
fanned  into  a  flame  ?  Perhaps  it  was  an  early 
manhood,  when  hopes  ran  high,  when  cour- 
age was  abiding,  and  when  a  proud  con- 
sciousness prevailed  that  no  enemy  could 
daunt,  no  obstacle  impede,  that  suddenly, 
unexpectedly,  the  testing  hour  came.  As 
we  now  mournfully  look  back  we  see  if, 
when  the  war  broke  out,  when  the  fire 
raged,  when  the  estate  descended  to  us, 
when  the  enterprise  was  proposed,  or  when 
the  way  of  retreat  was  opened  from  some 
questionable  calling,  we  had  only  been 
equal  to  the  emergency,  we  would  be  im- 
measurably better  off  in  worth  of  character 
and  estate  than  we  are.  It  may  have  hap- 
pened in  later  years  that  we  were  brought 
to  "where  two  roads  meet,"  and  at  their 
junction  paused  irresolute,  realizing  the  im- 
mense importance  of  our  decision,  and  now 
regretting  that  we  did  not  choose  the  one 
we  then  declined  to  tread. 

That  was  a  supreme  moment  in  the  his- 
tory of  Columbus  when  he  craved  a  drink 
of  water  at  a  convent  door,  when  the  good 
prior,  drawn  to  him  by  the  grandeur  of  his 
plans,  supplied  him  with  letters  of  intro- 
duction which"  opened  the  way  for  the  dis- 
covery of  a  new  world.  Without  this  op- 
portunity his  magnificent  schemes  might 
have  miscarried;  but  with  it  how  many 
men  would  never  have  succeeded.  That  was 
a  supreme  moment  to  Martin  Luther  when 
the  pope's  bull  was  published  in  his  German 
home,  and  when  his  usefulness  and  happi- 
ness centered  in  its  defiant  destruction. 
How  few  would  have  the  courage  in  these 
days  to  commit  it,  as  he  did,  to  the  flames, 
and  yet  had  not  the  reformer  done  so  he 
would  have  regretted  it  all  his  days.  That 
was  a  supreme  moment  in  the  career  of 
Ignatius  Loyola  when,  on  the  walls  of  Pam- 
60 


peluna,  the  cannon-shot  fractured  his  legs 
and  forced  him  into  seclusion,  from  whence 
the  hot-blooded  Spanish  soldier  might  have 
come  forth  a  saint,  but  instead  came  forth 
a  Jesuit.  That  was  a  supreme  moment  when 
Wallenstein  halted  between  loyalty  to  the 
empire  and  his  own  aggrandizement.  That 
was  a  supreme  moment  in  the  turbulent  life 
of  Nelson,  when  he  turned  his  blind  eye  to 
the  signal  that  had  been  hoisted  for  him  to 
retire  from  before  Copenhagen  and  contin- 
ued the  fight  for  the  honor  of  his  country.  It 
was  then  that  his  relation  to  the  victory  at 
Trafalgar  was  practically  decided.  That 
was  a  supreme  moment  to  Gen.  Grant  when 
he  was  appointed  to  command  in  the  south- 
west, and  made  it  possible  for  him  at  last 
to  receive  the  sword  of  Gen.  Lee;  and  yet 
how  many  might  have  fought  on  the  Cum- 
berland who  would  only  have  demonstrated 
their  unfitness  to  lead  an  army  on  the 
James. 

Such,  also,  was  the  moment  in  the  life 
of  Napoleon,  when  Barras  proposed  in  the 
hour  of  the  Convention's  peril  that  the 
young  general  should  command  its  meagre 
forces.  And  thus,  to  every  one,  in  great 
degree  or  small,  comes  the  favorable  oppor- 
tunity, the  hour  for  which  all  previous 
hours  have  been  made,  the  great  divide 
from  whose  summit  the  traveler  will  rush 
down  either  into  the  chilly  valleys  of  the 
north  or  into  the  warm,  sunny,  flowery  vales 
of  the  south.  That  is  a  supreme  moment 
in  life  when  the  lad  becomes  disttincly  con- 
scious of  the  great  world  of  nature  that  lies 
around  him,  and  hears  its  merry  voices 
sounding  in  wind  and  waves,  murmuring  in 
leaves  of  trees,  and  warbling  of  birds,  and 
saying:  "Ask  what  thou  wilt,  and  even  to 
the  half  of  my  kingdom  will  I  give  you." 
That  is  a  supreme  moment,  too,  when  the 
youth  is  brought  into  the  presence  of  the 
mighty  dead,  who  survive  for  evermore  in 
their  recorded  thoughts,  and  whose  shades, 
bending  lovingly  over  the  inquiring  mind, 
seem  to  whisper:  "Be  it  unto  thee  even  as 
thou  wilt."  That,  also,  is  a  moment  never 
to  be  forgotten  when  the  sacred  majesty  of 
religion  first  sheds  its  holy  halo  on  the  dusty 
path  of  life,  when  inspired  men  of  God  and 
the  exalted  Christ  come  near  the  soul  and 
breathe  in  its  inner  chambers  the  divine 
messages  of  grace  and  peace.  Supreme  mo- 
ments each  to  be  followed  by  others  in  their 
time  supreme  as  well ;  but  by  none  of  whose 
magnitude  and  solemn  import  shall  ever 
surpass  these  more  familiar  ones  which  are 
the  common  heritage  of  all. 

Like  the  Syrophenician  woman,  many 
6i 


seek  unfalteringly  and  unweariedly  the  more 
promising  circumstances  of  earthly  life,  and 
hear  at  last  the  cheering  words,  "Be  it  unto 
thee  even  as  thou  wilt" ;  while  others, 
thoughtless  and  unconcerned,  pursue  their 
way  laughing  and  dancing,  and  are  startled 
and  surprised  when  the  voice  of  fortune 
assures  them  that  whatsoever  they  ask  shall 
be  granted.  But,  alas !  when  the  favorable 
hour  conies  how  many  fail  to  realize  its 
significance,  and  know  not  how  to  choose, 
or  at  the  best  choose  wildly,  madly.  Poor 
Salome  hastens  to  her  mother,  and  returns 
to  Herod  with  the  sanguinary  demand  for 
the  head  of  John  the  Baptist.  Was  there 
nothing  worthier  her  ambition  than  such  a 
g-hastly  object?  Would  it  not  have  been  no- 
bler to  have  taken  some  of  the  possessions 
laid  at  her  feet,  and  to  have  consecrated 
them  to  the  elevation  of  the  degraded,  the 
instruction  of  the  ignorant,  and  the  succor- 
ing of  the  poor?  Nobler,  and  wiser,  too, 
beyond  all  question ;  but  no,  the  supreme 
moment  is  perverted,  degraded,  abused. 
Indignation  at  the  faithfulness  of  God's  ser- 
vants, sees  only  in  the  turn  afifairs  have  ta- 
ken an  opening  through  which  the  spirit  of 
revenge  may  enter  the  dark  prison  with  a 
gleaming  axe  and  on  his  helpless  form  ex- 
pend its  malignant  cruelty.  And  thus  have 
thousands  chosen,  and  thus  are  thousands 
choosing  every  day. 

The  majority  of  people  look  upon  their 
opportunities  simply  as  means  for  self-grati- 
fication, self-importance,  and  self-aggran- 
dizement. If  they  do  not  employ  them  to 
murder  others  they  use  them  to  assassinate 
themselves.  They  do  not  discern  their  sig- 
nificance, do  not  follow  them  up  with  vigor, 
and  so  lose  the  advantages  which  they  are 
fitted  to  confer.  What  do  you  do,  young 
man,  when,  after  much  seeking,  a  situa- 
tion was  provided  for  you  in  a  house  where 
everything  was  ofifered  to  assure  success? 
Did  you  grow  negligent,  careless,  spending 
your  nights  in  riot  and  your  days  in  shirk- 
ing work?  How  did  you  carry  yourself, 
my  friend,  when  fortune  was  inherited, 
and  you  were  suddenly  transferred  from  a 
realm  of  poverty  to  a  domain  of  affluence? 
Did  you  immediately  set  about  the  easy  task 
of  proving  to  community  the  truth  of  the 
adage,  "Place  a  beggar  on  horseback  and  he 
will  ride  to  the  devil,"  and  illustrate  its 
veraciousness  in  your  own  miserable  per- 
son ?  What  course  did  you  pursue  when 
llie  much-coveted  opportunity  for  distin- 
guishing yourself  came?  When  the  post  of 
honor  was  assigned  you,  which  is  always 
the  post  of  danger,  whether  it  be  on  the  bat- 
62 


tie-field  or  in  the  sharp  conflict  betweeen 
truth  and  error,  and  between  right  and 
wrong,  what  did  you  do  ?  Betray  your  trust 
— run  away?  Well,  if  you  did,  you  only 
formed  part  of  a  "goodly  company"  who 
have  done  likewise  from  the  beginning  of 
the  world  to  the  present.  Very  few  indeed 
have  been  like  the  Syrophenician  woman 
who  understood  the  "signs  of  the  times," 
and  had  honest  decision  to  make  her  oppor- 
tunity tributary  to  the  well-being  of  others. 
She  willed  that  the  striken  one  at  home 
should  be  restored,  that  the  devil  which 
possessed  her  should  be  cast  out,  and  the  old 
peace  and  joy  should  reign  again  beneath 
the  domestic  roof.  Others  have  been  equal- 
ly wise,  and  to-day  we  call  them  the  world's 
benefactors,  heroes,  leaders,  friends,  and  we 
speak  their  names  with  tender  accents  born 
•of  love.  But  if  men  and  women  have  not 
this  discernment,  if  they  do  not  recognize 
the  spring-time  when  it  comes,  and  fail  to 
break  the  soil  and  prepare  for  golden  har- 
vests, let  them  not  rail  against  God,  and 
moodily  contend  that  they  have  known  only 
unbroken  winter,  and  an  ice-bound  earth. 
Let  them  not,  as  too  many  do,  bewail  their 
lot,  that  nature  has  held  them  fast  in  a  fro- 
zen sea,  with  frost-clouds  resting  on  every- 
thing about  them,  as  though  the  snu  had 
not  more  than  once  rent  a  channel  for  them 
to  the  friendlier  ocean. 

The  impression  prevails  that  man  is  a 
creature  of  circumstances,  and  circumstances 
are  repeatedly  invoked  to  explain  the  suc- 
cess of  one  and  to  account  for  the  failure  of 
another.  This  is  the  usual  plea  of  the  unfor- 
tunate, who  find  some  solace  in  laying  on  a 
scape-goat  their  weaknesses  and  stupidities. 
It  is  also  the  refuge  of  envy  and  malice  from 
whence  they  can  snarl  at  those  who  have 
tramped  on  to  victory.  But  they  are  de- 
ceiving themselves.  Circumstances  are  in- 
deed indispensable  to  grand  achievements, 
but  they  are  not  everything.  It  is  not 
enough  for  Herod  and  Christ  to  say:  "Be 
it  unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt" ;  for  whether 
the  generous  o'^erture  is  really  made  musi- 
cal or  discor  'ant  will  depend  on  the  key 
which  the  A^ill"  aspires  to  strike.  "As 
thou  wilt,"  aaid  Herod  to  the  daughter,  and 
she  chose  a  death's-head ;  "as  thou  wilt," 
said  Qirist  to  the  mother,  and  she  chose 
life  and  health.  Circumstances  never  made 
a  man,  but  it  is  the  man  always  that  im- 
proves the  circumstances,  and  causes  them 
to  yield  their  richest  treasures  and  their 
sweetest  fragrance.  What  you  may  be, 
what  you  will  be,  rests  with  yourself  and 
with  no  one  else,  and  nothing  else.     Hegel 

63 


has  said  that  "'the  essence  of  spirit  is  free- 
dom" ;  even  as  "the  essence  of  matter  is 
gravity";  intimating  that  there  is  in  us  a 
power  of  volition  that  cannot  be  explained 
by  any  mechanical  system,  or  by  any  meta- 
physical subtleties  whatever.  Why  one  man 
rides  upon  the  tide  to  fame  and  fortune, 
and  another  goes  down  beneath  its  swirling 
waters,  no  one  can  explain.  It  is  enough 
for  us  to  know  that  the  deepest  thinkers 
find  the  secret  in  the  men  themselves,  though 
unsolvable,  and  impentrable,  or  at  best, 
if  not  inconceivable,  certainly  inexpressi- 
ble by  the  poor  organs  of  human  speech. 

Schiller  writes,  when  alluding  to  one  who 
allows  himself  to  be  influenced  by  the  stars : 

"You'll  wait  upon  the  stars,  and  on  their  hours, 
'Til  the  earthly  hour  escapes  you.     O,  believe  me, 
In  your  own  bosom  are  your  destiny's  stars. 
Confidence  in  yourself,  prompt  resolution, 
This  is  your  Venus !  and  the  sole  malignant, 
The  only  one  that  harmeth  you  is  doubt." 

The  Bible  confirms  philosophy  at  this 
point,  verifies  the  instincts  of  humanity, 
and  assumes  throughout  that  "man  is  his 
own  star,"  and  that  his  position  in  time  and 
his  destiny  in  eternity  are  determined  by 
his  own  volition.  He  is  w^hat  he  willed  to 
be ;  he  will  be  what  he  wills  to  be ;  and  if  he 
never  is  what  he  might  be,  it  is  because  he 
would  not  be  what  he  could  be.  "Have  I 
any  pleasure  at  all  that  the  wicked  should 
die?"  indignantly  asks  God;  "and  not  that 
he  should  return  to  his  ways  and  live?" 
This  solemn  inquiry  is  repeated  in  the  Old 
Testament ;  and  Christ  declares  in  the  New : 
"Even  so  it  is  not  the  will  of  you  Father 
which  is  in  heaven  that  one  of  these  little 
ones  should  perish." 

The  prophet  represents  the  Almighty  as 
saying:  "Oh,  that  thou  hadst  hearkened 
to  my  commandments !  then  thy  peace  had 
been  as  a  river,  and  thy  righteousness  as  the 
waves  of  the  sea" ;  and  Christ  pathetically 
exclaims :  "How  often  would  I  have  gath- 
ered thy  children  together,  as  a  hen  doth 
gather  her  brood  under  her  wings,  and  ye 
would  not";  "Ye  would  not  come  to  me 
that  ye  might  have  life."  Such  passages 
could  be  multiplied,  and  many  others  whose 
burden  is,  that  "Whosoever  will  may  come 
and  drink  of  the  water  of  life  freely.'^  Here 
we  touch  on  the  borders  of  a  great  mystery. 
We  know  that  God  is  spoken  of  as  omnipo- 
tent, and  we  wonder  often,  if  He  is,  why  he 
permits  evil  to  continue,  and  man  to  remain 
in  suflFering  or  sorrow.  But  may  it  not  be 
that  we  speak  too  absolutely  on  this  subject, 
and  that,  after  all,  some  limits  to  the  Divine 
power  in  reality  exists? 

64 


I  suppose  it  will  not  be  claimed  that  even 
He  could  put  an  atom  in  two  places  at  one 
and  the  same  time.  But  if  He  is  bounded 
by  the  laws  of  matter,  why  not  equally  so 
by  the  laws  of  spirit?  Having  made  the 
soul  free,  may  not  freedom  be  a  perpetual 
restraint  on  the  exercise  of  His  power,  so 
that  He  can  only  plead  with  His  erring 
creature,  furnish  assistance  and  means  of 
deliverance,  but  never  break  through  the 
barriers  that  the  free  spirit  may  interpose 
between  itself  and  His  purposes  of  mercy? 
If  this  is  conceivable,  it  brings  us  a  little 
nearer  the  solution  of  the  question  why  a 
God  of  might  and  goodness  does  not  sweep 
by  one  exercise  of  His  power  all  forms  of 
evil  from  this  suffering  earth ;  and  it  sets  in 
a  clearer  light  the  central  truth  of  this  dis- 
course, that  favorable  crisis,  supreme  mo- 
ments, and  glorious  opportunities  are  as 
nothing  in  themselves,  and  depend  on  man 
himself  for  their  value  and  their  profit. 

Blessings  are  responsibilities  in  disguise. 
When  adverse  circumstances  disappear,  and 
when  our  surroundings  wear  an  air  of  pros- 
perity, obligation  proportionately  increases. 
We  shall  render  an  account  to  God  for  our 
abuse  or  neglect  of  His  gracious  and  help- 
ful providences,  and  will  find  our  souls 
filled  with  bitter  regrets  if  we  shall  esteem 
them  lightly.  • 

"Of  all  the  sad  words  of  tongue  or  pen, 
The  saddest  are  these,  it  might  have  been." 

Picture  to  yourself  wretched  Salome  with 
her  bloody  trophy  in  her  hands,  the  mute 
lips  of  the  murdered  saint  reproaching,  as 
the  living  John  never  did  when  he  thun- 
dered in  Herod's  ear  his  words  of  awful 
warning.  All  through  her  future  life  will 
she  be  haunted  by  the  memory  that  she  had 
her  opportunity,  and  madly  clotted  it  with 
blood.  Never  can  she  recall  the  past,  never 
restore  what  she  has  wasted ;  responsible 
for  what  it  might  have  been,  she  plods  heav- 
ily to  the  grave,  conscious  that  it  can  never 
be  what  it  ought  to  be.  Mr.  Robert  Brown- 
ing in  "Paracelsus"  sings : 

"  'Tis  only  when  they  spring  to  heaven  that  angels 
Reveal  themselves  to  you;  they  sit  all  day 
Beside  you,  and  lie  down  at  night  by  you. 
Who  care  not  for  their  presence,  muse  or  sleep; 
And  all  at  once  they  leave  you,  and  you  know 
them." 

And  some  one  has  said,  "We  prize  our 
blessings  when  they  are  flown,"  but  all  our 
regrets,  weeping  and  remorse  will  never — 
never  can — bring  them  back  again.  The 
angels  that  once  were  nevermore  return  to 
those  who  have  slighted  their  presence  and 

65 


scorned  their  favor.  Then  cling  to  them 
while  they  are  with  you.  Pray  them  to 
abide;  or,  if  they  must  in  a  Httle  time  be 
gone,  learn  while  you  may,  each  word  and 
sentence  of  the  message  that  they  bring. 
Especially  learn  of  Christ.  Not  once  but 
often  has  He  spoken  to  you ;  not  once  but 
often  has  He  drawn  close  to  your  soul  with 
promises  of  eternal  blessing.  A  precious 
privilege,  a  wondrous  honor,  to  be  the  ob- 
ject of  His  solicitude  and  the  creature  of 
riis  thoughtful  love!  Is  He  near  vqu  now? 
Do  you  hear  His  footfall — do  you  catch  the 
sound  of  His  voice?  It  is  to  you,  beloved, 
the  moment  of  moments ;  cast  yourself  at 
His  feet,  and  realizing  the  need  that  is  in 
you  for  cleansing,  the  need  that  is  in  you 
for  power  to  help  others,  and  realizing 
the  world's  need  for  earnert  laborers  to  cast 
out  the  devils  that  infest  it — making  its 
burdens  yours — like  the  Syrophenician 
woman,  pray :  "O,  Lord,  thou  son  of  Da- 
vid, help  me!" 


Sowing  and  Reaping. 

IRev.  imtlliam  C.  Stinson,  5).  H). 

Gal.  vi  :7,  8. 

"Be  not  deceived;  God  is  not  mocked;  for  whatsoever  a  man 
sowetb,  that  shall  be  also  reap.  Tor  be  tbat  sowetb  to  his 
flesb  sball  of  the  flesh  reap  corruption ;  but  be  that  sowetb 
to  the  Spirit  sball  of  the  Spirit  reap  life  everlasting." 

THIS  is  a  moral  as  well  as  a  physical 
world.  It  is  governed  by  moral 
laws.  Man  is  a  moral  being  and 
he  is  subject  to  these  laws.  This 
does  not  mean  that  he  is  under 
the  bondage  or  tyranny  of  law.  There  is 
a  disposition  in  many  quarters  to  regard 
man  as  the  victim  of  seen  or  unseen  forces 
which  either  make  or  break  him.  There  is 
a  false  teaching  to-day  which  says  there 
is  a  predetermined  course  marked  out  for 
each  man  by  an  arbitrary,  partial  power, 
and  each  individual  must  follow  this  pre- 
destined course.  Then  there  is  a  philoso- 
phy of  fate  and  chance,  and  they  who  be- 
lieve it  look  upon  the  soul  as  in  a  lifelong 
game  of  battle-door  and  shuttle-cock.  Too 
many  persons  regard  their  lives  as  marbles 
flung  out  indiscriminately  upon  the  baga- 
telle-board of  human  existence.  They  bump 
against  obstacles,  wobble  around  life's  hon- 
ors and  go  bounding  and  rolling  toward 
some  unknown  destiny.  Pathetic,  indeed, 
is  it  to  see  the  persons  who  have  yielded 
to  such  teaching.  Many  of  them  have 
ceased  to  struggle  and  ceased  to  care.  Baf- 
fled, discomfitted  by  the  strange  and  hard 
experiences  through  which  they  have 
passed,  they  have  lost,  or  well  nigh  lost, 
their  faith  in  human  volition  and  divine 
providence.  It  is  pitiful  to  see  them  swept 
along  like  driftwood  on  a  river,  or  hustled 
about  like  dead  leaves  in  an  autumn  w'ind, 
victims  of  forces  over  which  they  cease  to 
exert  any  control.    Such  fatalism  expresses 


Pastor  of  Ihe  Bloomingdale  Reformed  Church,  New  York. 
67 


Itself  this  way :  "I  am  an  automaton,  a 
puppet  dangling  on  my  distinctive  wire, 
which  fate  holds  with  an  unrelaxing  grasp. 
I  am  not  different,  nor  do  I  feel  different, 
from  my  fellow  men,  but  my  eyes  refuse  to 
blink  away  the  truth,  which  is  that  I  am  an 
automatic  machine,  a  piece  of  clock-work, 
wound  up  to  go  for  an  allotted  time, 
smoothly  or  otherwise,  as  the  efficiency  of 
the  machine  may  determine."  There  is  a 
fatalism  which  declares  that  the  train  is 
the  world,  we  are  the  freight,  fate  is  the 
track,  death  is  the  darkness,  God  is  the  en- 
gineer— but,  alas !  He  is  dead. 

Much  of  modern  fiction  is  saturated  with 
the  thought  that  heredity  and  environment 
are  the  all-powerful  factors  in  human  des- 
tiny, that  personality  counts  for  nothing, 
that  every  man  is  the  ghost  of  his  dead  an- 
cestors, who  look  through  his  eyes,  speak 
in  his  word  and  act  in  his  deeds.  In  other 
words,  that  human  life  is  like  a  piece  of 
shoddy  cloth  in  the  great  mill  of  circum- 
stance, which  stands  on  the  banks  of  the 
River  of  Time,  and  turns  out  the  shabby 
lives  of  men  and  women. 

It  is  against  this  morbid  and  erroneous 
conception  of  life  that  we  raise  a  word  of 
protest  and  warning.  Heredity  and  envi- 
ronment are  not  to  be  underrated.  They 
are  powerful  factors.  Nor  are  they  to  be 
over-estimated ;  but  I  maintain  that  in  every 
man  there  is  an  untainted  power,  something 
which  passes  from  generation  to  generation 
untouched  by  change,  and  even  though 
it  may  be  shut  in  by  evil  conditions  and  tied 
to  a  thousand  evil  tendencies,  yet  it  may  and 
does  frequently  assert  itself  and  show  its 
superiority. 

Man  is  morally  free.  Strip  that  state- 
ment of  all  theological  sophistry  and  meta- 
physical subtlety ;  is  it  not  true  of  every 
man  here  to-day  that  he  has  the  power  of 
moral  choice?  Your  presence  here  is  evi- 
dence of  the  existence  of  this  power.  The 
existence  of  this  and  every  other  evangelis- 
tic enterprise  is  based  on  the  presumption 
that  man  can  choose  between  the  good  and 
the  evil.  If  you  deny  that,  then  it  is  useless 
to  appeal  to  motives.  You  may  as  well  close 
the  avenues  to  academic  honors  and  abolish, 
courts  of  justice  and  penitentiaries.  We 
preachers  may  as  well  close  our  churches 
and  cease  pleading  with  the  consciences  of 
men.  Deny  man's  capacity  of  moral  choice, 
and  you  deny  man's  personal  accountabil- 
ity and  destroy  manhood  itself. 

There  is  the  beautiful  picture  in  the  Gos- 
pel, brought  out  in  the  words  of  Jesus,  "Be- 
hold, I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock."  What 
68 


does  it  mean?  It  means  that  even  though 
the  infinitely  patient  Saviour  may  stand 
and  knock  all  day  and  all  night  at  the  door 
of  your  heart,  He  will  never  force  His  en- 
trance. If  He  ever  enters,  it  is  because 
you  heard  Him  knocking,  and  yourself  with- 
drew the  bolt,  and,  opening  the  door,  you 
gave  Him  welcome.     Man  is  morally  free. 

Man  is  also  under  law.  You  admit  that 
of  man's  bodily  nature,  but  there  are  laws 
moral  as  well  as  physical.  Man's  physical 
freedom  consists  in  an  adjustment  of  his 
body  to  these  physical  laws.  So  man's 
moral  freedom  consists  in  the  adjustment 
of  his  spirit  to  moral  laws.  Both  physical 
and  moral  laws  find  their  gravitating  centre 
in  God.  The  God  of  Nature  and  the  God 
of  Morals  are  not  two  different  Gods,  but 
one  and  the  same  God.  "Though  there  be 
that  are  called  gods  many,  and  lords 
many,  yet  to  us  there  is  but  one  God." 

These  laws  are  inexorable  in  their  opera- 
tion. \/e  talk  about  breaking  the  laws  of 
God,  but  that  is  careless  speech.  We  break 
the  laws  of  God?  No.  If  we  do  not  obey 
them,  they  break  us.  There  is  no  more 
escaping  the  consequences  of  the  violation 
of  the  moral  law  than  there  is  of  exemption 
from  a  broken  body  if  you  violate  the  law 
of  gravitation.     ]\Ian  is  under  law. 

Man  is  wider  the  law  of  heredity.  This 
means  vastly  more  than  the  reproduction 
of  the  traits  and  characteristics  of  his  par- 
ents. It  means  that  he  is  not  only  heir  to 
his  environments,  inheriting,  for  example, 
the  lineaments  of  parents,  birthplace,  nurs- 
ing, early  training,  and  the  like,  but  it  means 
that  he  is  also  inheriting  himself  in  himself. 
He  is  reproducing  his  own  character.  He 
is  repeating  himself  in  himself.  Each  repe- 
tition of  an  act  is  intenser  than  the  preced- 
ing. Each  bad  act  becomes  the  sire  of  many 
bad  acts,  even  as  each  good  act  becomes  the 
sire  of  many  good  acts.  In  other  words, 
he  illustrates  in  himself  the  law  of  the  har- 
vest, "Whatsoever  a  man  sows,  that  shall 
he  also  reap.''  The  law  holds  absolutely 
in  the  vegetable  world.  The  farmer  knows 
full  well  if  he  sows  wheat  he  will  reap  not 
tares,  but  wheat,  and  vice  versa.  The  same 
law  holds  in  the  spiritual  world.  If  a  man 
sows  righteousness,  he  will  reap  from  that 
righteousness,  not  sinfulness,  but  righteous- 
ness. You  cannot  sow  one  kind  of  seed  and 
reap  another  kind  of  harvest.  This  truth 
was  brought  out  in  a  memorable  conversa- 
tion between  a  Galilean  carpenter  and  a 
Judean  rabbi.  "That  which  is  born  of  the 
flesh  is  flesh,  and  that  which  is  born  of  the 
spirit  is  spirit."  Marvel  not.  You  do  not  mar- 
69 


vel  at  the  law  of  bodily  inheritance.  Why 
should  you  marvel  at  the  law  of  spiritual 
inheritance?  You  must  reap  what  you  sow. 
There  is  no  setting  aside  the  natural,  in- 
evitable outworking  of  the  law.  Will  you 
expect  a  spiritual  harvest  from  a  physical 
sowing?  If  you  sow  to  the  flesh,  you  must 
reap  to  the  flesh.  If  you  sow  to  the  spirit, 
you  must  reap  to  the  spirit.  There  is  no 
passing  of  the  flesh  over  into  the  spirit. 
That  is  the  reason  why  Christ  said,  "Ye 
must  be  born  again,  anew,  from  above." 
That  was  not  a  new,  special  edict  by  the 
founder  of  Christianity.  It  is  written  in  the 
very  constitution  of  human  nature.  Christ 
discovered  it  and  set  it  forth  for  our  in- 
struction and  salvation.  Man  is  under  the 
law  of  the  harvest. 

The  harvest  gathered  is  ever  larger  than 
the  seed  sozvn.  He  who  sows  sparingly 
reaps  sparingly.  He  who  sows  bountifully 
reaps  bountifully.  For  example,  a  man 
sows  the  love  of  money.  What  does  he 
reap?  Dollars  and  cents?  Possibly;  but 
one  thing  he  does  reap — an  intensifying  love 
of  money.  As  the  growth  is  ever  larger 
than  the  germ,  he  grows  fonder  and  fonder 
of  money.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  if 
he  grows  covetous,  becomes  more  and  more 
grasping  and  grinding.  Nor  need  we  won- 
der if  we  see  him  growing  miserly,  until  the 
habit  of  miserliness  is  ever  becoming  more 
and  more  confirmed.  What  is  true  of  cov- 
etousness  and  avarice  is  also  true  of  intem- 
perance, indolence,  skepticism,  and  the 
whole  train  of  moral  evils.  The  crop  is 
ever  larger  than  the  seed.  He  -that  sows 
to  the  wind  shall  reap  to  the  whirlwind. 
That  is  to  say,  that  every  man  by  reason  of 
his  moral  choice,  and  in  sheer  virtue  of  the 
law  of  the  harvest,  is  ever  more  intensify- 
ing his  moral  character.  Do  you  not  see 
this  all  around  you?  Do  you  not  see  bad 
men  growing  worse  and  worse,  and  good 
men  becoming  better  and  better? 

Behold  the  illustration  of  this  law  in  the 
case  of  Pharaoh.  You  will  remember  that 
God  commanded  Pharaoh  through  Moses  to 
let  the  children  of  Israel  go  free  from  their 
Egyptian  bondage.  Now,  Pharaoh  was  a 
mere  moral  agent.  He  had  the  ability  to 
obey  or  disobey  the  divine  command.  He 
chose  to  disobey.  God  treated  Pharaoh  as  a 
free  man,  declining  to  interefere  with  his 
own  divine  law  of  heredity,  but  allowing  it 
to  take  its  natural  course.  Now,  in  the 
book  of  Exodus,  we  have  the  constant  inter- 
change of  expressions.  "God  hardened 
Pharaoh's  heart;"  "Pharaoh  hardened  his 
own   heart ;"    "Pharaoh's   heart   was    hard- 


ened."  Now,  the  question  arises,  Did  God 
harden  Pharaoh's  heart?  Not  directly; 
perish  the  thought.  But  as  God  had  made 
Pharaoh  a  free  man  under  the  moral  law, 
then  indirectly  He  hardened  Pharaoh's 
heart?  In  other  words,  God's  doing  was 
the  occasion,  but  Pharaoh's  doing  was  the 
cause.  Pharaoh  chose  to  disobey,  but  dis- 
obedience grew  upon  him,  so  that  by  per- 
sistent refusals  to  heed  the  Divine  Com- 
mand, he  reaped  a  dreadful  crop  of  stub- 
bornness, obstinacy  and  hardening  of  the 
heart,  or  moral  parahsis.  So  that  in  the 
last  analysis,  Pharaoh  hardened  his  own 
heart.  "Let  no  man  say,  when  he  is  tempt- 
ed, I  am  tempted  of  God;  for  God  is  un- 
tried of  evil,  and  He  Himself  tempted  no 
man ;  but  each  man  is  tempted  when  he  is 
drawn  away  by  his  own  lust  and  enticed; 
then  the  lust,  when  it  hath  conceived,  bear- 
eth  sin :  and  the  sin,  when  it  is  full  grown, 
bringeth  forth  death."     Be  not  deceived. 

Pharaoh's  case  is  typical.  It  is  a  daily 
phenomenon.  Pharaoh  acted  throughout 
just  as  he  pleased.  He  was  cruel  and  proud 
and  stubborn,  and  he  acted  out  of  his  own 
nature.  He  chose  to  sow  pride,  and  he 
reaped  what  he  sowed — obstinacy,  and  the 
harvest  of  pride  and  obstinacy,  of  course, 
was  larger  than  the  original  seed. 

Pharaoh's  guilt  has  ever  been  the  guilt 
of  many.  Pathetic,  indeed,  the  instances 
of  men,  otherwise  great,  who  have  permitted 
the  hardening  of  their  moral  faculties 
through  sheer  disobedience  of  God's  laws. 
How  many  are  callous  to  distinctivelv  sacred 
influences,  proof  alike  against  the  promises 
of  God's  grace  and  the  menaces  of  God's 
law.  There  was  a  process  in  the  hardening, 
m  the  days  of  youth  they  refused  to  remem- 
ber God;  they  were  carried  away  by  life's 
gaieties,  sowed  the  seed  of  procrastination 
or  neglect  of  the  Saviour's  gracious  invita- 
tion. Now,  in  mature  years,  choice  is  hard- 
ened into  habit,  and  during  the  days  of 
middle  life  or  old  age  they  are  reaping  what 
they  sowed,  in  the  careless,  reckless  days 
of  youth.  "Whosoever  hath,  to  him  shall 
be  given."  Whosoever  is  susceptible  to 
truth,  to  him  shall  truth  be  given,  and  he 
shall  have  abundance ;  with  the  increase  of 
susceptibility  shall  come  an  increase  of 
truth,  and  with  the  increase  of  truth  shall 
come  an  increase  of  susceptibility.  But 
whosoever  is  not  susceptible  to  truth,  from 
him  shall  be  taken  away  even  what  he  hath ; 
not  only  his  opportunity  for  hearing  truth, 
but  also  his  capacity  for  truth  itself.  "Take 
away  the  talent  from  him."  Is  there  a  tal- 
ent for  music,    for  painting,   for  business? 

71 


So  is  there  a  talent  for  godliness.    And  this 
talent  abused  or  disused  is  forfeited. 

There  is  a  disease  called  ossification,  as 
when  an  artery  is  changed  into  bone.  So 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  moral  ossification, 
or  spiritual  petrefaction.  Have  you  never 
read  of  a  conscience  seared  with  a  red-hot 
iron  ?  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  cauterized 
sense. 

Let  me  conclude  with  two  thoughts : 

First. — Each  man  is  responsible  for  his 
own  character.  Each  man  has  the  liberty 
of  sowing  what  he  pleases.  The  harvest 
that  he  reaps  is  the  aggregate  of  his  habits, 
— that  is  to  say,  his  character.  Accordingly, 
then,  it  is  for  each  man  to  say  whether  he 
will  be  good  or  bad ;  whether  he  will  grow 
better  or  worse.  Conditions  and  circum- 
stances may  be  partially  responsible  for 
your  character,  but  the  final,  ultimate  re- 
sponsibility is  with  yourself.  Only  in  one 
sense  can  you  hold  God  responsible,  and 
that  is  for  the  laws  under  which  you  have 
your  moral  being  and  growth ;  but  those 
laws  include  your  moral  freedom,  without 
which  you  would  not  have  the  blessing  of 
manhood  itself. 

Second. — Each  man  is  responsible  for  his 
destiny.  He  is  responsible  for  his  destiny 
because  he  is  responsible  for  his  character. 
Character  determines  destiny.  A  profound 
truth  lies  in  the  adage  of  Sallust, — "Every 
man  is  the  architect  of  his  own  fortune." 
Daily  character  is  shaping  your  future  des- 
tiny. 

"For  the  structure  that  we  raise, 

Time  is  with  materials  filled; 
Our  to-days  and  yesterdays, 
Are  the  blocks  with  which  we  build." 

In  a  very  real  sense,  the  future  is  a  state 
of  retribution.  You  call  that  a  hard  doc- 
trine of  Christ's  teaching.  Christ  did  not 
create  it.  He  simply  declared  it.  It  was 
in  existence  long  before  His  appearance. 
It  was  manifest  at  the  very  beginning  of 
human  history.  What  does  retribution 
mean?  Retributing — paying  back  in  the 
same  coin — and  that  at  the  fearful  rate  of 
compound  interest.  He  that  is  unrighteous, 
let  him  be  unrighteous  still ;  he  that  is  holy, 
let  him  be  holy  still.  Take  heed  how  you 
live.  "Sow  an  act,  reap  a  habit;  sow  a 
habit,  reap  a  character;  sow  a  character, 
reap  a  destijiy." 

God  grant  that  these  words  may  come 
with  a  special  appeal  to  those  of  you  who 
arc  young,  you  who  are  in  the  plastic,  for- 
mative period  of  life.  You  are  now  electro- 
tvping  your  eternal  destiny.  It  is  easier 
to  become  a  Christian  to-day  than  ten  years 
72 


hence,  even  as  it  was  easier  ten  years  ago 
than  to-day. 

"Heaven  Hes  about  us  in  our  infancy.'' 
"Those  who  seek  me  early  shall  find  me." 
Remember  now  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of 
thy  youth ;  before  the  evil  days  come,  and 
the  years  draw  nigh  when  thy  moral  nature, 
no  longer  susceptible  and  formative,  shall 
become  confirmed  in  the  habit  of  sin,  for- 
ever petrified  into  adamantine  hardness. 

You  are  at  the  sowing  end  of  the  harvest 
field.  God  help  you  to  sow  pure  seed  that 
you  may  reap  a  golden  harvest.  And  if 
there  is  one  here  to-day  who  feels  helpless 
in  the  clutch  of  appetites,  who  seems  to  be 
held  in  the  grip  of  a  giant,  on  the  brink  of 
a  precipice,  and  is  crying, — "Who  shall  de- 
liver me?  who  will  help  me?"  to  him  I  say, 
"There  is  a  helper  and  deliverer;  He  stands 
at  the  door  of  your  heart;  listen  to  His 
words, — 'Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door  and 
knock ;  if  any  man  hear  my  voice  and  open 
the  door,  I  will  come  in  to  him  and  sup  with 
him  and  he  with  me.  To  him  that  over- 
cometh  will  I  grant  to  sit  with  me  in  my 
throne.  Even  as  I  also  overcame  and  am 
set  down  with  my  Father  in  His  throne.' 
'He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear.'  T  will 
take  away  the  heart  of  stone  and  give  the 
heart  of  flesh.'  " 


the  Divine  Appeal  to  man's  mill 


1Rev>,  }£.  IB.  Cbivcre,  ©.  S). 


John  v  :4o. 
"Ve  will  not  come  to  me,  that  ve  miabt  bave  life.' 

Matt,  xxv  :  37. 
"  tiow  often  would  T    *    *    *    and  v<  would  not.' 


o 


N  almost  every  battlefield,"  says 
one  writer,  "  there  is  some  one 
spot  where  the  issue  of  the  battle 
is  decided."  He  cites  as  an  illus- 
tration the  field  of  Waterloo.  Well- 
ington, "the  iron  duke,"  had  established 
himself  and  his  forces  in  a  strong  position. 
The  key  to  that  position  was  an  old  Flemish 
farm-house  of  brick,  called  Hougomont. 
This  house,  with  its  outbuildings  and  gar- 
den, was  enclosed  by  a  high  brick  wall. 
Beyond  lay  an  orchard  and  a  stretch  of 
woods,  with  a  pond,  which  served  as  a  moat. 
The  walls  of  this  stronghold  were  loopholed 
for  musketry  fire,  and  a  scaffolding  was 
erected  to  enable  the  troops  within  the 
garden  to  fire  over  the  wall.  It  was  an  al- 
most impregnable  position.  Against  it  Na- 
poleon hurled  his  forces.  Troops  were 
massed  against  it.  Cannon  and  rifle  were 
turned  upon  it.  Column  after  column  of 
French  soldiery  swept  towards  it,  and  as- 
sailed it  with  fiery  valor.  The  battle  raged 
and  surged  about  it  for  hours.  The  woods 
adjoining  were  several  times  taken  and  re- 
taken ;  but  the  chateau  itself  remained  in 
the  kee])ing  of  the  I'ritish.  The  British 
troops  held  it  firmly  to  the  last,  and  "the 
iron  duke"  won  his  Waterloo. 

"Similarly,"  says  our  writer,  "in  every 
human  being  there  is  one  element  about 
which  the  battle  of  life  is  fought.  It  is  the 
will.  '■'  ='=  *  The  whole  contest  of  good 
and  evil  over  our  humanity  is  as  to  the 
control  of  the  will.     '■''''     *     *     As  goes  the 

Pastor  of  the  Sixth  Avenue  Baptist  Church,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 
74 


will,  so  goes  the  man — for  time  and  for  eter- 
nity." This  is  the  regnant  power  in  human 
nature.  It  is  the  imperial  faculty  which 
makes  choices  and  decisions. 

*''John,  wnat  do  you  do  that  for?"  asked 
a  father  of  his  son,  who  was  performing 
some  curious  and  unusual  movements 
around  the  room.  "Oh,  I  do  it  because  I 
want  to,  father,"  was  the  reply.  The  fact 
and  the  philosophy  of  the  will  are  expressed 
in  that  simple  statement. 

"I  do  it — because — I  want  to."  The  child 
refers  his  action  to  himself.  He  does  it. 
This  is  the  assertion  of  the  man  concerning 
all  his  acts  and  courses  of  conduct.  What- 
ever may  be  the  theories  of  the  philosopher 
as  to  the  freedom  of  the  will,  every  man 
teels  that  practically  he  is  free.  His  whole 
mental  being  rises  in  protest  against  any 
scneme  of  necessity  that  would  rob  him  of 
his  freedom  and  reduce  him  to  a  mere  au- 
tomaton. He  knows  that  he  is  free;  that 
what  he  does  is  his  own  doing;  that  the 
spring  of  action  is  within.  And  the  lad 
nnds  the  occasion,  the  moving  cause,  of 
his  activity  in  his  own  desire.  No  con- 
straint is  brought  to  bear  upon  him  from 
without.  He  simply  wants  to  do  a  certain 
thing,  and  he  does  it.  The  actions  of  the 
man  are,  in  like  manner,  determined  by  his 
own  desires,  preferences,  choices.  He  is 
not  bound,  in  regard  to  his  actions,  by  any 
outward  constraint.  The  entire  conduct  of 
his  life — its  domestic  relations,  its  business 
and  social  arrangements,  proceeds  upon  the 
conviction  that  the  will  is  free. 

This  will  in  man  is  as  forceful  as  it  is 
free.  Inaeed,  so  striking  are  its  achieve- 
ments, that  its  power  to  overcome  difficul- 
ties and  to  bring  things  to  pass  is  expressed 
in  the  maxim,  which  is  almost  accepted 
as  an  axiom :  "Where  there  is  a  will  there 
is  a  way."  Many  a  youth  who  started  in 
life  under  unpromising  conditions  has  said 
to  himself:  "I  will,"  and  his  sturdy  deter- 
mination has  made  for  nim  a  wav  to  a  thor- 
ough education  or  to  a  successful  business 
or  professional  career.  Men  have  gathered 
tnemselves  up  in  the  face  of  sickness,  and 
even  of  death  itself,  resolved  that  they 
would  live,  if  living  were  a  possibility;  and 
the  very  resolve  has  been  a  tonic,  quickening 
vitality  and  bringing  back  health.  Alen  have 
faced  difficulties,  and  by  sheer  force  of  will 
have  taken  adverse  circumstances  as  by  the 
throat,  and  compelled  them  to  yield.  Ob- 
stacles have  been  brushed  aside  as  though 
tJiev  had  been  but  a  feather.     There  is  that 


^The  Will  in  Theology.     A.  H.  Strong,  D.  D. 
75 


in  thorough  resolution  that  savors  ahnost 
of  omnipotence.  To  think  that  we  are  able 
is  ahnost  to  be  so ;  to  determine  upon  attain- 
ment is  often  attainment  itself.  "You  can 
only  half  will"  were  the  disdainful  words 
of  the  resolute  Suwarrow  to  people  who 
failed. 

This  power,  of  course,  has  its  limitations. 
There  are  many  things — things,  too,  which 
are  vitally  related  to  the  development  of 
character — that  lie  altogether  outside  the 
range  of  our  choosing  or  willing.  We  have 
no  choice  as  to  the  country  or  condition 
into  which  we  are  born,  or  as  to  the  influ- 
ences that  touch  and  mould  us  in  infancy 
and  early  life ;  we  cannot  shape  at  will  the 
circumstances  that  play  upon  our  lives ;  but 
it  is  within  our  province  and  power  to  deter- 
mine whether  we  will  breast  adverse  condi- 
tions, or  weakly  and  ignobly  yield  to  them. 
It  is  for  us  to  decide  whether  we  will  make 
the  most  and  the  best  of  ourselves,  whatever 
the  setting  of  circumstances  in  which  our 
lives  are  placed.  We  can  decide  whether 
we  will  make  good  or  evil  the  aim  and  end 
of  life's  pursuit.  In  this  region — the  region 
of  moral  choices — the  will  is  sovereign.  We 
are  not  as  mere  straws  upon  the  water, 
tossed  to  and  fro  in  helplessness  by  every 
breath  of  wind  and  every  eddying  wave ; 
we  have  within  us  the  power  of  the  swim- 
mer, and  can  strike  out  and  bufifet  the 
waves.  Herein  lies  the  "manliness  of  man- 
hood, that  a  man  has  reason  for  what  he 
docs,  and  has  a  will  in  doing  it." 

To  this  element  of  power — this  deter- 
mining element — in  human  nature,  as  well 
as  to  reason,  conscience,  sensibility,  the 
Gospel  makes  appeal.  This  is  after  all  the 
key  position.  The  outposts  may  be  taken 
and  re-taken ;  but  the  issue  of  life's  Water- 
loo depends  upon  the  masonry  of  this  cen- 
tral stronghold.  Reason  may  assent  to  the 
teachings  and  claims  of  the  Gospel ;  the  con- 
science may  be  stirred  to  intensest  activity, 
uttering  its  imperative  in  clearest  tones,  and 
enforcing  it  with  highest  sanctions;  the 
sensibilities  may  be  moved  to  their  inmost 
depths ;  and  yet  tlie  will  may  remain  un- 
subdued. Not  until  the  will  yields  is  the 
victory  of  truth  and  love  and  righteousness 
won. 

If  we  turn  to  the  sacred  Scriptures,  we 
find  in  them  everywhere  a  recognition  of 
the  human  will,  with  all  its  powers  and  pre- 
rogatives; and  an  appeal,  through  persua- 
sions of  every  conceivable  kind,  to  influ- 
ence aright  its  action.  By  command  and 
prohibition,  by  entreaty  and  warning,  by 
rich  promise  of  grace  and  stern  threatening 
76 


of  judgment,  is  this  appeal  enforced;  but 
nowhere  is  there  even  a  suggestion  of  in- 
fringement upon  the  domain  of  man's  free- 
dom of  choice.  Boundless  persuasions 
there  are ;  but  the  thought  of  coercion  is  as 
alien  to  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  and  the 
thought  of  God  as  it  is  inconsistent  with  the 
nature  and  prerogatives  of  man. 

Upon  the  opening  pages  of  revelation, 
we  have  a  picture  of  man  in  his  primitive 
state.  He  is  endowed  with  intellect  or  rea- 
son to  discern  the  difference  between  right 
and  wrong;  he  has  sensibility  that  can  be 
moved  by  these ;  he  has  freedom  to  do  the 
one  or  the  other.  His  moral  condition  is 
that  of  innocence — child-like  innocence. 
From  this  condition  he  is  to  pass  into  that 
of  mature  moral  manhood.  This  transition 
can  be  made  only  through  a  process  of 
testing.  The  test  is  made.  He  is  placed 
in  a  position  where  good  is  not  the  onlv 
thing  that  offers.  An  alternative  is  pre- 
sented. The  choice  of  good  in  preference 
to  evil  is  set  before  him.  Evil  is  chosen. 
Man  tastes  its  bitter  fruit  of  shame  and 
fear,  and  entails  upon  the  race  a  heritage 
of  woe.  But  he  is  free  in  his  doing.  He 
does  it  because  he  wants  to.  There  was  a 
wilful  turning  away  from  the  divine  good, 
clearly  expressed.  In  the  face  of  a  divine 
command,  he  yielded  to  temptation.  He 
gave  place  to  the  temptation  until  that 
which  it  offered  became  his  own  preference 
and  deliberate  choice.  Before  him  lay  a 
blessed  possibility  of  fellowship  with  God 
and  of  increasing  likeness  to  Him.  Fain 
would  the  Infinite  One  have  seen  that  pos- 
sibility realized.  But  there  are  some  things 
that  even  gracious  Omnipotence  cannot  do. 
A  forced  goodness  is  among  the  things  that 
are  not  possible.  It  is  a  contradiction  in 
terms.  A  moral  agent  must  be  free.  A 
forced  obedience  has  in  it  no  moral  value. 
You  may  keep  a  boy's  hands  out  of  mischief 
by  tying  them  behind  his  back,  but  in  so 
doing  you  also  take  away  the  power  of 
beneficent  activity.  A  man  cannot  be  made 
virtuous  by  any  fiat  from  without.  Such  a 
result  can  come  only  from  the  free  working 
of  his  own  will  within  him.  God  recog- 
nizes this,  and  acts  upon  it,  even  though 
man's  free  action  seems  to  involve  the 
thwarting  of  the  divine  desires,  and  to  bring 
to  the  divine  heart  unspeakable  pain.  Man 
has  the  power  to  resist  God.  He  can  take 
a  course  that  is  contrary  to  all  the  expressed 
wishes  and  commands  of  God.  He  can  say 
"No"  to  God;  and  God  permits  him  to 
say  it. 

"See,  I  have  set  before  thee  this  day  life 


and  good,  and  death  and  evil ;  .  .  .  . 
I  call  heaven  and  earth  to  witness  against 
you  this  day,  that  I  have  set  before  you>life 
and  death,  the  blessing  and  the  curse ;  there- 
fore, choose  life  that  thou  mayest  live,  thou 
and  thy  seed,  to  love  the  Lord  thy  God, 
to  obey  His  voice  and  to  cleave  unto  Him; 
for  He  is  thy  life  and  the  length  of  thy 
days."  Such  are  the  words  in  which  Mo- 
ses, as  the  representative  of  the  Most  High, 
addresses  Israel  at  the  close  of  his  eventful 
life.  He  proclaims  to  them  the  law  of  God, 
with  the  blessings  that  would  follow  upon 
obedience ;  he  rehearses  all  the  gracious 
dealings  of  God  wnth  the  people,  and 
uses  them  as  persuasions ;  but  having 
set  before  them  the  practical  alternatives, 
he  leaves  with  them  the  final  act  of  de- 
cision. 

''Choose  ye;  choose  ye;"  this  is  the  call 
which  rings  out  again  ■  and  again  in  the 
story  of  God's  dealings  with  men.  He  ever 
seeks  to  bring  men  to  the  exercise  of  de- 
liberate and  settled  choice.  His  dealings 
are  gracious ;  His  mercies  are  kind ;  H'S 
patience  is  long-suffering;  He  brings  to 
bear  on  men  sweet  compulsions  of  love ;  He 
appeals  to  men  by  ten  thousand  ministries. 
But  He  ever  respects  the  freedom  with 
which  He  endowed  man,  and  which  is  man's 
inalienable  birthright. 

The  story  of  redemption  is  one  of  un- 
ceasing divine  effort  to  win  man's  love  and 
obedience.  It  is,  from  first  to  last,  the  un- 
veiling of  a  love  that  seeks,  even  at  cost  of 
utmost  sacrifice,  to  bring  resistless  motives 
to  bear  upon  man's  will,  and  infinite  per- 
suasions upon  his  heart.  That  love  finds 
its  final  expression  in  Jesus  Christ.  The 
words  of  the  Lord  Jesus  are  gracious  ut- 
terances of  it.  Tlie  deeds  of  Jesus  are  out- 
shinings  of  it.  The  cross  of  Jesus  is  the 
consummate  exhibition  of  it.  There  God 
surrenders  the  inmost  treasure  of  His  heart 
to  utmost  experience  of  suffering  and  pain 
and  death,  that  man  might  thereby  be  won 
to  a  responsive  love.  Wonderful  is  the  at- 
tractive power  of  the  cross !  It  moves  men 
to  repentance  by  the  mightiest  force  of 
mercy ;  it  draws  and  binds  men  to  holy  liv- 
ing by  the  enduring  bonds  of  gratitude  and 
love.  God  sends  forth  His  servants  to  pro- 
claim the  love  and  sacrifice  of  that  cross, 
and  beseeches  men,  through  their  persua- 
sions and  entreatings,  to  be  reconciled  to 
Him.  The  ministry  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
waits  upon  the  word  to  that  same  end.  A 
thousand  gracious  influences  press  continu- 
ally upon  man's  heart  and  will.  Christ 
stands  at  the  door  and  knocks.  Gladly  would 
78    ■ 


He  come  in  and  make  men  partakers  of  the 
joy  of  fellowship.  He  will  take  the  place  of 
a  suppliant,  in  lowliness  of  love  and  earnest- 
ness of  longing ;  but  He  will  not  break  open 
the  door  or  enter  an  unwilling  heart.  "Be- 
hold, I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock;  if  any 
man  open  the  door,  I  will  come  in  to  him, 
and  sup  with  him." 

We  are  prepared  now  to  find  that  the 
Scriptures,  which  thus  clearly  recognize  the 
will  of  man,  and  respect  its  freedom,  charge 
home  with  telling  force  and  directness  upon 
man  the  responsibility  for  wrong  choices, 
with  all  their  dread  issues.  The  effort  is 
made  in  some  quarters  to  shift  the  responsi- 
bility and  blame  for  wrong  doing.  If  it  be 
not  charged  directly  upon  God,  it  is  laid 
at  the  door  of  circumstances  and  attributed 
to  the  necessary  outworking  of  certain  nat- 
ural laws.  Conduct  and  character,  we  are 
told,  are  only  the  evolution  of  certain  in- 
herited tendencies,  wrought  out  in  given 
circumstances.  We  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  choosing  of  our  inheritance,  or  of  our 
environment.  And  we  can  no  more  help 
acting  as  we  do  under  given  conditions,  we 
are  told,  than  we  can  the  texture  of  our 
brain.  Against  all  such  theorizings  that 
which  is  deepest  and  noblest  in  us  rises  in 
revolt.  It  is  an  aspersion  upon  the  dignity 
of  our  nature.  Our  consciousness  gives  the 
lie  to  it.  It  makes  sin  a  mere  figment  of 
the  imagination.  The  sense  of  sin  is  too 
deeply  inwrought  into  universal  conscious- 
ness to  make  any  such  view  tenable  or 
credible.  We  know  that  sin  is  a  fact,  and 
that  our  sinning  is  our  own  doing. 

Very  grave  is  the  responsibility  which 
our  freedom  entails.  By  our  own  choices 
and  decisions  we  are  shaping  character  and 
determining  destiny.  Temperament  we  are 
born  with ;  character  we  have  to  make. 
Circumstances  may  be  beyond  our  power; 
our  choices  are  our  own.  Evil  thoughts, 
like  carrion  birds,  may  darken  the  atmos- 
phere about  us ;  if  they  find  a  dwelling-place 
within,  our  own  hands  must  build  the  nests. 
Surroundings  may  seem  unfavorable  to  the 
development  of  a  high  type  of  character ; 
but  there  is  a  power  within  reach  that  can 
re-enforce  the  will,  and  make  us  rise  above 
circumstance.  Sometimes  rarely  beautiful 
characters  are  developed  amid  most  for- 
bidding surroundings,  like  pure  and  fra- 
grant lilies  coming  up  from  beds  of  ooze. 
Heredity  and  environment  count  for  much ; 
but  they  are  not  chargeable  with  every- 
thing. There  is  a  personal  element ;  and 
that  personal  element  is,  after  all,  the  deter- 
mining   factor.      Others    may    bring   influ- 

79 


ences  to  bear  upon  us ;  our  choices  are  our 
own.  We  cannot  escape  the  responsibility 
of  them. 

Not  only  is  it  impossible  to  escape  re- 
sponsibility for  our  moral  choices  when 
made ;  we  cannot  evade  the  making  of  them. 
Whenever  the  claims  of  right  are  presented 
to  us,  or  the  temptation  to  wrong  assails 
us,  we  cannot  escape  decision  of  some  kind. 
As  Professor  James,  in  his  essay  on  "The 
Will  to  Believe,"  puts  it:  "To  say  under 
circumstances,  'Do  not  decide,  but  leave  the 
question  open,'  is  itself  a  passional  decision, 
— just  like  deciding  Yes  or  No, — and  is  at- 
tended with  the  sam.e  risk  of  losing  the 
truth."  Sometimes  we  are  pressed  by  di- 
rect appeal  to  moral  decision.  If  not  thus 
pressed,  it  still  remains  true  that  at  any 
given  time  the  ruling  preference  of  the 
nature  is  either  God-ward,  or  self-ward  and 
sin-ward. 

Our  salvation  cannot  be  thrust  upon  us 
even  by  God.  God  has,  we  may  be  sure, 
done  all  for  us  that  He  can  do.  "Christ 
finished  our  salvation  on  the  divine  side; 
we  must  finish  it  on  the  human.  Christ 
made  it  possible;  we  must  make  it  actual." 
We  may  thwart  the  working  of  grace,  "I 
am  come  that  ye  might  have  life."  That 
was  the  declared  purpose  of  Christ's  advent. 
"Ye  will  not  come  to  me  that  ye  might  have 
life."  That  was  the  sad  charge  which 
Christ  laid  at  the  door  of  an  unwilling  and 
unbelieving  people.     "How  often  would  I 

and  ye  would  not."    That  was 

the  lament  of  Christ  over  doomed  and  un- 
repentant Jerusalem.  And  the  bitterness  of 
it  all  was,  and  is,  "It  might  have  been  other- 
wise." 

Acting  upon  the  lives  of  all  of  us  are  gra- 
cious divine  agencies  and  influences.  Other 
powers  than  those  of  darkness  are  at  work; 
there  are  influences  of  grace  and  love  to 
lift  us  up,  and  shape  our  lives  to  noble  ends. 
Everything  that  even  divine  love  can  in- 
spire or  suggest;  everything  that  gracious 
power  can  do; — all  this  is  brought  to  bear 
upon  us  for  our  good ;  but  in  our  wilfulness 
we  resist  God,  and  receive  His  grace  in 
vain.  This  is  the  sad  tragedy  of  life.  The 
blame  of  it  lies  at  our  own  doors.  "Ye 
would  not."    "Ye  will  not." 


Bi  tbe  Door  of  tbe  Kind<loiti» 

IRobert  IB.  Speer. 


1  THINK  one  of  the  most  attractive  and 
yet  one  of  the  most  distressing  stories  in 
the  Bible  is  the  story  told  at  the  close  of 
the  Gospel  of  Mark  regarding  a  certain 
lawyer  who  came  up  to  the  gates  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  refused  to  go  in.  It  was 
the  day,  some  of  you  will  remember,  on  which 
Jesus  Christ  was  involved  in  a  great  contro- 
versy. The  three  different  factions  of  the 
Jews — the  Pharisees,  and  the  Sadducees,  and 
the  Herodians,  who  did  not  agree  very  much 
in  anything  else,  agreed  in  this :  that  they 
hated  Jesus,  and  they  had  prepared  a  trap 
in  which  they  hoped  that  that  day  they 
might  catch  IJim.  Certain  subtle  questions 
they  had  phrased  which  they  thought  could 
be  answered  in  only  one  or  the  other  of  two 
ways,  and  whichever  way  Jesus  answered 
them  they  felt  sure  that  they  had  Him 
snared.  And  they  asked  their  questions,  and 
Jesus  answered  them  without  evasion,  with- 
out any  shuffling,  in  a  plain,  straightforward 
way,  and  yet  they  found  they  were  no  bet- 
ter off  when  He  had  got  through  answering 
them  than  they  were  before.  And  there 
seems  to  have  come  a  little  hush  over  the 
crowd,  while  those  who  had  been  question- 
ing Jesus  stood  in  rather  shame-faced  si- 
lence, not  knowing  just  what  next  to  do. 
And  thereupon,  Mark  tells  us,  a  certain 
lawyer  in  the  crowd  spoke  up  and  asked 
Jesus  Christ  a  question.  Maybe  it  was  only 
a  catch  question  that  they  used  in  the  Jew- 
ish schools  to  test  scholars  on ;  maybe  it 
was  a  question  that  had  really  puzzled  this 
man,  and  he  saw  as  he  listened  to  Jesus 

Secretary  of  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Foreign  Missions. 
8i 


talking  that  day  that  here  at  last  was  a 
Teacher  genuine,  sincere,  honest,  open- 
minded,  who  might  be  able  to  answc*  his 
question  for  him.  And  he  put  his  question 
to  Jesus,  and  Jesus  gave  him  a  reply.  It 
was  a  reply  such  as  the  man  had  never  got 
to  his  question  before,  and  for  the  moment 
he  forgot  himself,  lie  forgot  the  crowd ;  he 
looked  straight  in  Jesus'  face  and  he  said : 
"Master,  Thou  hast  well  said  that  there  is 
only  one  God,  and  that  our  whole  duty  is 
to  love  Him,  and  that  beside  loving  Him 
and  our  neighbor  everything  else  is  as  noth- 
ing." And  Jesus  looked  him  back  straight 
in  the  eye  and  said:  "Thou  art  not  far 
from  the  kingdom  of  God."  I  imagine  He 
paused  a  moment  then  to  see  what  the  man 
would  do.  Doubtless  the  lawyer  heard  a 
little  rustle  behind  him.  Maybe  somebody 
pulled  the  skirt  of  his  robe ;  maybe  some- 
body nudged  him  and  told  him  he  was  going 
a  little  too  far — at  any  rate,  he  suddenly 
remembered  himself  and  the  crowd  that 
stood  round  him,  and  he  sank  back  and  was 
lost  in  the  multitude,  and  we  never  hear  of 
him  again.  He  came  right  up  to  the  door 
of  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  King  of  the 
kingdom  stood  at  the  door  inviting  him  to 
come  in,  and  because  he  was  afraid  of  his 
surroundings  he  shrank  back  from  the  king- 
dom and  its  King.  Will  you  fix  that  man 
in  your  mind  now  as  a  type  of  the  men  who 
refuse  to  come  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
because  they  are  afraid  of  their  surround- 
ings, and  just  hold  him  in  your  memory 
while  we  range  up  beside  him  three  other 
men. 

One  of  them  was  a  rich  voung  ruler  who 
came  to  Jesus  one  day  as  He  was  travelling 
along  the  highways  of  Palestine — a  bright 
faced  fellow  with  none  of  those  blotches 
on  his  countenance  that  tell  their  story 
only  too  well  of  what  is  back  of  the  coun- 
tenance ;  with  nothing  back  of  the  outside 
to  show  that  it  was  an  unclean  or  evil  life. 
And  when  Jesus  looked  upon  him,  the  clean, 
ruddy  face  telling  of  the  clean,  pure  life, 
we  are  told  that  He  loved  him.  And  when 
the  young  man  came  up  to  Him  and  said 
to  Him :  "Good  Master,  what  shall  I  do 
that  I  may  inherit  eternal  life?"  He  an- 
swered him  in  a  way  to  draw  out  his  con- 
fidence, and  told  him  what  he  must  do :  first 
of  all,  keep  the  commandments.  He  wanted 
to  try  the  young  man's  character.  "Well," 
said  the  young  man, "perhaps  I  have  kept 
them.  I  have  not  committed  adultery ;  I  - 
liave  not  stolen ;  I  have  not  borne  false  wit- 
ness ;  all  these  things  I  have  kept  from  my 
youth.  My  mother  taught  me  to  be  clean, 
82 


and  I  never  have  given  up  my  birthright 
of  purity  and  of  cleanliness."  "One  thing," 
said  Jesus,  laying  His  finger  on  the  real 
weak  spot  in  that  young  man's  life,  "one 
thing  thou  lackest."  He  saw  that  the  man 
was  clean ;  that  he  had  no  gross  vices  cling- 
ing to  him ;  that  he  had  in  a  measure  kept 
the  outside  of  the  commandments,  whether 
he  had  kept  the  inside  of  them  in  Christ's 
way  or  not.  What  he  still  lacked  was  the 
spirit  of  generous  abandon,  of  liberty,  of 
unselfish  service,  the  lack  of  which  Christ 
laid  His  finger  on  as  his  great  defect  and 
sore.  Once  again  the  doors  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  swung  open  before  a  man  and  the 
King  of  the  kingdom  stood  on  the  threshold 
and  invited  him  in,  and  the  man  shrank 
back  because  he  had  something  he  was  un- 
willing to  give  up.  Fix  that  man  in  your 
mind  beside  the  lawyer  as  a  type  of  the  men 
who  will  not  come  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
because  they  have  something  in  their  lives 
that  they  are  unwilling  to  give  up. 

I  think  of  another  man  before  whom  a 
little  Jew  is  standing,  and  he  is  speaking  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  and  appealing  to  those 
deep  moral  instincts  that  never  have  been 
suppressed  and  never  can  be  suppressed  in 
any  human  heart,  and  as  he  pleads  Agrippa 
wavers,  and  yet  he  passes  it  ofif  with  a  su- 
percilious smile,  feeling  too  high  to  be  of- 
fended, but  too  great  and  proud  altogether 
to  yield  to  Paul's  appeal.  "Paul,"  he  says, 
sarcastically  perhaps,  "thou  dost  al- 
most persuade  me  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian." There  once  again  the  kingdom 
of  God  opened  its  doors  to  a  man,  and  a 
friend  of  the  King  stood  with  his  hand  on 
the  door  inviting  a  man  to  come  in,  and 
the  man  refused  to  come  into  the  kingdom 
and  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  King, 
because  of  that  feeling  of  personal  pride 
that  to  do  this  thing  would  be  a  little  be- 
neath him.  He  had  a  standing  to  maintain. 
He  was  a  man  of  self-poise,  of  dignity. 
He  had  never  given  himself  away.  Do  you 
suppose  he  was  going  to  betray  his  own 
inner  life  and  make  a  show  of  himself  be- 
fore his  fellows  by  confessing  himself  a 
follower  of  the  poor,  despised  Jesus?  And 
he  turned  away  from  the  gate  of  the  king- 
dom of  God.  Let  him  stand  in  your  mind 
side  by  side  with  these  two  other  men  as 
a  type  of  the  men  who  stay  out  of  the 
kingdom  because  of  personal  pride. 

And  now  range  up  beside  these  three  one 
more.  Once  again  that  little  Jew,  a  few 
weeks  before  this  scene  of  which  I  have 
just  been  speaking,  is  arguing  before  a  gov- 
ernor. He  knows  the  character  of  that  gov- 
83 


ernor.  He  reads  on  his  face  the  story  of 
his  inner  Hfe,  and  he  argues  before  him 
of  righteousness,  of  self-control,  and  of  a 
judgment  to  come;  and  while  he  reasons, 
Felix  trembles.  He  is  too  weak  a  man  to 
answer.  He  knows  that  what  Paul  is  say- 
ing is  true,  and  he  stands  there  shifting  to 
and  fro,  the  poor,  pliable,  feeble,  vacillating 
nature,  afraid  to  come  to  a  decision,  and  yet 
afraid  not  to  do  so.  And  he  says:  "Paul, 
Paul,  go  thy  way ;  a  little  later  I  will  think 
about  it,  and  some  day  I  will  take  the  ques- 
tion up ;  when  I  have  a  little  more  convenient 
season  I  will  call  for  thee."  Let  him  stand 
for  that  great  class  of  men  who  shuffle ;  who 
have  not  the  moral  power  to  take  a  clean 
step ;  the  men  who  fail  to  go  into  the  king- 
dom of  God  when  its  marble-white  doors 
swing  open  before  their  hearts,  because  of 
a  lack  of  downright,  sterling,  manly  force. 

Now,  men,  underneath  these  four  lives — 
let  them  drop  for  just  a  moment — there  runs 
this  great  truth  :  It  is  possible  for  a  man  to 
miss  what  God  wants  him  to  have.  There 
were  the  gates  of  the  kingdom  of  God  wide 
ajar  before  those  four  men.  Every  one 
of  those  four  men  was  free  to  go  in,  and  they 
turned  away  from  the  open  gates  of  the  open 
kingdom,  and  never  looked  upon  the  face  of 
the  King  in  His  beauty.  Men  think  some- 
times if  they  are  lost  it  is  God's  fault,  and 
not  their  fault.  It  is  not  so.  God  has  done 
for  the  salvation  of  men  everything  Pie  can 
do.  He  cannot  break  down  the  human  per- 
sonality. He  cannot  invade  a.  man's  own 
sovereignty.  All  He  can  do  is  just  to  say 
to  us :  "Come,  My  son,  let  us  reason  to- 
gether." All  He  can  do  is  just  to  plead  with 
us  and  stand  at  the  door  and  knock,  and  say : 
'Tf  any  man  will  open  the  door  I  will  come 
in  to  him,"  but  He  cannot  break  through  into 
the  man's  life.  Why,  what  does  human 
history  teach  but  that?  It  is  possible  for 
men  to  miss  the  will  of  God  for  themselves. 
That  is  the  whole  great  lesson  of  Jewish 
history.  They  wandered  forty  years  through 
the  wilderness,  when  it  was  only  eight  days' 
journey  over  into  the  promised  land.  God 
was  getting  them  ready  to  recognize  the 
Messiah  when  He  came,  and  when  "He 
came  to  His  own,  His  own  received  Him 
not."  The  very  first  lesson  of  Jewish  his- 
tory is  that  it  is  possible  for  a  race  to  miss 
what  God  wants  it  to  have,  and  that  is  the 
whole  lesson  of  human  history.  The  King 
came  to  men,  and  He  walked  around  about 
among  men,  and  they  saw  the  King's  na- 
ture in  Him,  and  they  crucified  Him  Hke  a 
thief,  and  between  two  thieves,  on  a  cross. 
All  human  history  went  awry  that  bitter 


day  on  Calvary,  though  the  good  God  over- 
ruled it  all. 

My  friends,  we  need  only  look  into  our 
own  lives  to  see  how  easy  it  is  to  miss  what 
God  wants  us  to  have.  There  are  men 
here  who  have  wrecked  homes ;  who  have 
had  people  in  their  own  family  lines  die  of 
broken  hearts.  I  will  warrant  there  isn't  a 
family  history  represented  here  in  this  audi- 
ence ,  that  does  not  bear  the  seams  and  the 
scars  of  sin.  Just  think  back  over  your 
family  history.  Think  of  the  drunkards  in 
it.  Just  think,  some  of  you,  may  be,  upon 
the  sin  and  the  shame  of  your  own  homes. 
Did  God  intend  us  to  have  those  things? 
It  is  possible  for  a  man  to  miss  what  God 
wants  him  to  have. 

There  was  Jesus  Christ  standing  with 
His  outstretched  arms  before  the  gates  of 
the  kingdom,  and  there  was  that  lawyer 
standing  in  the  crowd.  There  had  just  come 
a  little  burst  of  manliness  in  him,  and  he 
separated  himself  a  little  bit  from  the  throng, 
and  he  was  standing  there,  I  suppose,  the 
first  time  for  many  years  with  that  sense 
of  isolation  and  freedom  that  belongs  to  the 
real  man,  and  Jesus  Christ  was  speaking  to 
his  heart,  wanting  just  to  throw  his  arms 
around  that  man  and  drag  him  into  the 
kino;dom.  The  man  turned  away  and  went 
back  into  the  crowd  again.  And  there 
the  Saviour  stood  that  day  talking  to  that 
young  man  whom  He  loved;  loved  him  be- 
cause of  what  he  was ;  loved  him  because 
of  what  he  knew  He  could  make  him — and 
the  young  man  turned  away  from  what 
Christ  wanted  him  to  have. 

It  is  possible  for  men  to  miss  what  God 
wants  them  to  have,  and  men  are  missing 
it  today  in  just  the  same  way  that  those 
men  missed  it  eighteen  hundred  years  ago. 
There  are  thousands  of  men  who  are  kept 
out  of  the  kingdom  of  God  because  they  are 
afraid  of  their  crowds.  There  are  some 
young  men  here  who  know  well  enough 
what  they  ought  to  do.  They  know 
that  sin  is  a  damnable  thing;  they 
know  it  is  no  part  of  a  man's  life  to  soil 
himself  with  lust  and  vice,  and  they  are  only 
tied  fast  to  it  because  they  are  afraid  to 
break  with  their  crowd.  There  are  thou- 
sands of  men  who  are  shut  out  of  the  king- 
dom of  God  today  just  because  they  are  not 
men  enough  to  shake  themselves  free  and 
exercise  their  own  will,  independent  of  the 
sneer  of  some  little  set  in  which  they  move. 

I  heard  the  other  day  of  a  boy  who  went 
to  a  Nev/  England  college,  and  he  joined 
one  of  the  fraternities  there  at  the  beginning 
of  his  freshman  year,  before  he  knew  what 

85 


the  character  of  the  fraternity  \\as ;  and  he 
found  out  after  a  few  days  that  he  had*got 
in  with  a  lot  of  speckled  men.  He  found 
it  was  harder  to  get  out  than  to  get  in. 
Those  men  were  not  going  to  let  him  loose. 
And  he  stood  it  for  a  few  weeks  until  he 
could  not  stand  it  any  longer,  and  then  he 
deliberately  broke  free  and  announced  that 
he  was  going  to  leave  the  fraternity.  They 
slandered  him  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  his  college  course ;  they  tried  to 
blacken  his  character,  and  it  was  only  be- 
cause he  had  strength  of  personal  will 
enough  to  stand  up  against  it  all  that  he 
emerged  at  last  with  a  clean  record  and 
the  respect  of  all  men ;  because  he  had  not 
been  willing  to  knuckle  under  to  a  crowd. 

There  is  a  college  at  Aberdeen,  Scotland, 
upon  the  stone  walls  of  which  it  is  said  these 
words  are  cut,  "'They  say.  What  do  they 
say?  Let  them  say."  What  difference  does 
it  make  to  me  what  other  men  say?  Are 
they  going  to  be  my  judges  at  the  Judgment 
Day?  I  shall  stand  out  all  alone  then,  and 
the  eyes  of  all  the  universe  will  be  on  me, 
and  the  Judge  upon  the  throne  will  be 
speaking  to  me,  and  no  crowd  of  men  who 
drove  me  in  slavery  to  their  sins  and  vices 
here  will  be  able  then  to  stand  up  and  take 
my  punishment  for  me.  By  as  much  as 
I  am  to  stand  alone  before  the  Great  Throne 
on  the  Judgment  Day,  I  propose  to  stand 
alone  among  men  now. 

What  it  is  right  for  a  man  to  do,  it  is 
right  for  a  man  to  do,  and  no  amount  of 
sneering,  no  amount  of  sneering,  no  amount 
of  poor,  weak,  frivolous  criticism  from  his 
fellows  can  ever  justify  a  man  in  being 
other  than  he  ought  to  be.  And  yet,  how 
many  men  there  are  here  who  will  dodge 
some  one  going  out ;  who  will  refuse  the 
invitation  to  come  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
to-day,  just  because  they  are  afraid  of  the 
little  crowd  in  which  they  move. 

And  there  are  men  still  who  are  shut  out 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  because  they  are 
unwilling  to  surrender.  That  vicious  habit 
that  you  practice  in  secret — you  know  it 
would  have  to  go  if  you  came  into  the 
kingdom  of  God.  That  illicit  relationship 
that  you  dare  not  speak  about  to  your  moth- 
er—vou  know  it  would  have  to  go  if  you 
came  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  All  that 
set  of  sins  in  men's  lives  that  compels  them 
to  have  secret  places  where  they  do  not  want 
their  mothers'  eyes,  or  God's  eyes,  to  pene- 
trate ;  all  that  class  of  sins  that  drag  in  their 
train  corruption  and  corrosion  of  life,  that 
make  it  impossible  for  a  nian  to  give  what 
he  gets  on  his  wedding  day — the  man  who 
86 


stands  on  the  threshold  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  knows  he  cannot  carry  those  things 
with  him. 

"I  beheld  in  my  dream,"  says  John  Bun- 
yan,  "there  was  room  for  riie,  but  there 
was  not  room  for  me  and  my  sins."  There 
are  many  men  who  stand  on  the  threshold 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  they  don't  want 
to  come  in  because  they  have  got  this  or 
that  thing  in  their  lives  that  they  don't  want 
to  give  up — some  dishonest  practice  in  their 
business  ;  some  vicious  habit ;  some  foul  spot 
in  their  lives.  Maybe  it  is  only  a  little  thing ; 
maybe  it  is  a  big  thing;  but  there 
are  men  still  who  will  sacrifice  eter- 
nity for  the  sake  of  a  passing  lust. 
There  are  men  still  who  will  let  all  the  end- 
less years  of  God  and  the  joy  of  abiding 
forever  in  the  Father's  house  of  many  man- 
sions slip  away  for  the  sake  of  some  poor, 
paltry  little  thing  that  they  cannot  carry 
beyond  the  grave.  Even  still  as  Jesus  Christ 
stands  by  the  gate  of  His  kingdom  and  calls 
men  in,  there  are  men  who  will  not  come 
because  they  will  not  surrender  the  things 
that  cannot  be  taken  in. 

And  I  suppose  that  here  in  a  com- 
pany like  this,  there  are  some  who 
are  held  out  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
just  as  Agrippa  was.  They  are  respected 
men ;  men  whom  everybody  trusts  and  con- 
fides in  ;  men  who  never  have  betrayed  them- 
selves. "Why."  they  say,  "people  would 
hardly  know  what  to  make  of  it  if  I  became 
a  Christian.  It  w^ould  be  a  little  demeaning 
in  me  now  with  my  standing  in  the  com- 
munity just  to  bow  down  as  any  ordinary 
sinner  and  go  into  the  kingdom  of  God." 
How  strange  it  is  that  a  man  should  think 
it  humbling  to  become  the  son  of  God,  when 
the  Son  of  God  did  not  think  it  humbling 
to  become  man.  If  God  was  wilHng  to  be- 
come a  son  of  man  for  my  sake,  I  am  willing 
to  become  a  son  of  God  for  His  sake.  Hu- 
miliating ?  I  like  to  go  back  to  my  old  home 
in  Pennsylvania  because  I  am  my  father's 
son.  Is  there  any  man  here  who  does  not 
feel  a  thrill  of  pride — maybe  there  are  some 
— because  they  are  their  father's  sons? 
Why?  Because  they  themselves  respect 
their  fathers ;  because  other  men  respect 
their  fathers,  and  they  are  proud  to  acknowl- 
edge that  they  are  their  father's  sons.  "To 
as  many  as  received  Him,"  we  read  in  the 
1st  chapter  of  the  Gospel  by  John — "To  as 
many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He 
power  to  become  the  sons  of  God" — the 
right  to  become  the  sons  of  God :  the  privi- 
lege to  become  the  sons  of  God.  Oh,  friends, 
you  cannot  exaggerate  the  glory  of  it — of 

87 


being  a  son  of  God,  and  of  having  God  ac- 
knowledge you  as  His  son,  and  of  having 
in  your  own  heart  the  testimony,  born  of 
His  Spirit,  that  you  are  the  Son  of  God. 
And  yet  there  are  men  who  think  that  to 
have  that  in  their  hves  would  be  humbling, 
and  therefore  as  the  King  stands  on  the 
threshold  of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  calls 
them  in,  they  will  not  go. 

And  how  many  there  are — every  man  of 
us  knows  them — who  will  not  go  into  the 
kingdom  of  God  just  for  a  lack  of  sheer 
manly  force.  A  man  says  to  them :  "Now, 
you  know  what  you  ought  to  be ;  you  know 
what  you  ought  to  do.  Come  in  and  be 
what  you  ought  to  be  and  do  what  you  ought 
to  do,"  and  the  man  whimpers  a  little  and 
he  shifts  back,  and  he  says :  "I — I  intend 
to  some  day.  I  am  not  going  to  be  a  sheer 
fool.  I  know  I  ought  some  day  to  do  this 
thing.  There  is  only  one  thing  for  a  man 
to  do,  and  that  is  the  right  thing;  there  is 
only  one  thing  for  a  man  to  be,  and  that 
is  the  right  thing.  I  intend  some  day  to 
do  the  right  thing  and  be  the  right  thing." 
But  the  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  man 
is  not  just  a  man.  What  makes  a  man? 
When  the  prodigal  off  there  among  the 
swine,  filling  his  own  belly  with  the  husks 
that  the  swine  did  eat,  came  to  himself  at 
last ;  when  he  broke  through  all  the  shell  of 
corruption  and  foul  habit,  and  got  into 
himself,  how  did  the  man  express  himself? 
"I  will;"  "I  will;"  "I  will;"  "I  will  arise 
and  go  to  my  father.  I  will  say  unto  him : 
'Father,  I  have  sinned  against  Heaven  and 
in  thy  sight.'  I  will  ask  him  to  make  me 
as  one  of  his  hired  servants."  And  the 
poor  outcast  was  a  man  again.  When  that 
moment  comes  in  any  life,  tired  of  shuffling, 
tired  of  compromise,  tired  of  drivelling  im- 
becility, and  the  man  gets  up  and  says :  "I 
will  arise  and  go,"  then  the  arms  of  Jesus 
Christ  clasp  him  around  and  lift  him  up 
through  the  gates  of  the  city  of  God. 

My  brothers,  there  are  hundreds  of  men 
who  are  staying  out  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
in  just  such  ways  as  these,  and  I  say  that  for 
a  man  to  stay  out  under  any  such  pretext 
is  a  weak  and  a  weakening  thing.  It  is  a 
weak  thing.  Stay  out  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  because  you  are  unwilling  to  give  up  a 
little  lust  or  sin !  Stay  out  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  because  you  are  afraid  of  what  some 
man  will  say !  Stay  out  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  because  of  the  want  of  sheer  force  and 
strength  in  your  life!  A  course  of 
action  like  that  is  a  weak  course  of  action, 
and  it  ends  in  the  excavation  of  a  man's 
character  that  leaves  him  where  that  poor 
8S 


prodigal  was  before  he  came  to  himself  and 
said :  "I  will  get  up  out  of  this  and  go  to 
my  father."  We  deprecate  in  men  any 
shuffling,  vacillating  weakness,  in  other  men 
or  in  ourselves.  We  like  in  them  and  in  our- 
selves that  solid,  robust  rigidity  of  principle 
that  makes  the  man  say:  "I  know  what 
the  right  thing  for  me  to  do  and  be  is,  and 
I  propose  to  be  the  right  thing  and  do  the 
right  thing,  though  a  hell  of  devils  assail  me 
and  try  to  drive  me  from  my  course." 

I  happened  to  be  over  night  in  Edinburgh 
a  couple  of  years  ago,  just  after  the  news 
of  the  battle  of  Magersfontein  came  to  Scot- 
land. You  know  that  was  a  battle  in  South 
Africa,  where  some  British  general  blun- 
dered and  the  Black  Watch,  one  of  the 
finest  Scotch  regiments,  was  cut  to  pieces, 
half  of  its  men  being  left  dead  on  the 
battlefield.  Almost  that  whole  regiment  had 
been  enlisted  in  Edinburgh.  A  friend  of 
mine  was  telling  me  of  passing  down  the 
street  the  day  the  tidings  came.  He  said 
every  shop  in  Edinburgh  was  closed,  and 
there  were  little  knots  of  men  standing  on 
the  streets,  and  many  of  them  had  tears 
coursing  down  their  cheeks.  I  happened 
to  be  staying  with  a  gentleman  who  had  a 
little  boy.  I  asked  the  lad  what  he  thought 
about  the  war.  He  said  he  hadn't  thought 
much  about  it  until  that  day  the  news  came, 
but  now  it  seemed  very  sad  to  him.  He  had 
a  friend  there,  General  Wauchope,  who  was 
killed  at  the  head  of  his  regiment,  one  of  the 
best-known  men  in  Edinburgh,  and  one  of 
the  best-beloved.  He  was  one  of  the  largest 
landholders  in  that  section  of  Scotland. 
And  when  he  and  half  his  regiment  were 
cut  down  in  needless  sacrifice,  the  whole  city 
of  Edinburgh  wept  like  a  little  child.  And 
yet.  after  all,  there  was  a  great  feeling  of 
contentment  in  it.  They  were  sure  that  their 
regiment  had  died  like  a  regiment  of  men. 
Almost  every  soldier  in  that  regiment  was 
a  Christian.  It  was  organized  as  a  Presby- 
terian church,  and  the  regimental  officers 
presided  at  their  regular  regimental  com- 
munion, and  on  their  way  to  the  front, 
going  to  the  transports  they  went  marching 
down  the  streets  of  Cork  singing: 

"I'm  not  ashamed  to  own  my  Lord, 

And  to  defend  His  cause, 
Maintain  the  honor  of  His  Word, 

The  glory  of  His  cross." 

And  when  a  few  weeks  afterwards  they 
came  sailing  into  the  harbor  of  Cape  Town 
and  disembarked,  going  at  once  up  to  the 
field   of   battle,    thev   went    ashore    singing 


that    great    soldier's    song,    the    song   that 
Hugh  Beaver  loved  so :  '■ 

"When  the  roll  is  called  up  yonder  I'll  be  there." 

It  was  only  a  few  days  afterwards  that 
the  roll  was  called  up  yonder  for  most  of 
them,  and  they  answered  to  their  names. 
And  one  loves  to  think  to-day  of 
the  Black  Watch,  the  way  it  lived  and 
the  way  it  died,  because  it  was  made  up  of 
men  who  had  their  faith  and  were  not 
ashamed  to  show  it. 

Aly  brothers,  you  stand  this  evening  on 
the  threshold  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and 
the  King  is  here.  Maybe  your  eyes  see 
Him,  and  maybe  they  do  not  see  Him.  But 
I  am  speaking  for  Him,  and  inviting  you 
into  the  kingdom.  Will  you  come  in  to- 
night ?  How  do  you  know  you  are 
going  to  have  another  chance  to  come  in? 
Of  course,  you  may.  You  are  not  going  to 
die  at  once,  probably,  and  there  will  be  other 
opportunities,  perhaps,  wdien  men  will  ask 
you  to  come  and  give  your  lives  to  Christ; 
to  be  the  kind  of  men  you  know  you  ought 
to  be ;  to  do  the  sort  of  thing  you  know  you 
ought  to  do.  But  how  do  you  know,  if  you 
turn  away  from  the  kingdom  this  afternoon, 
that  you  will  ever  want  to  come  in  again  ? 
God  won't  change,  but  you  will  never  be- 
the  same  again  that  you  are  this  afternoon. 
That  lawyer  came  up  to  the  gate  of  the 
kingdom,  and  Christ  asked  him  to  come  in, 
and  the  door  was  open  in  front  of  him,  and 
he  felt  a  drawing  down  in  his  heart,  just 
like  the  pulling  of  the  fingers  of  a  little 
child — you  know  what  it  is — drawing  him 
in  through  the  gates  of  the  kingdom,  and  he 
turned  away  and  never  came  back  again. 
How  can  a  man  know,  if  he  once  refuses  to 
accept  Jesus  Christ  and  to  come  in  through 
the  doors  of  the  kingdom,  that  the  next  time 
his  heart  won't  be  a  little  harder,  and  he 
will  want  even  less  to  come  in  ? 

In  the  life  of  the  great  naturalist,  Charle.« 
Darwin,  there  is  a  storytelling  how  once  as  he 
sat  at  his  table  he  saw  a  little  passion  plant 
in  front  of  him.  and  he  took  up  a  lead  pencil 
and  he  laid  on  the  lax  tendrils.  You  know 
what  the  passion  plant  is,  what  it  docs.  All 
the  little  leaves  began  to  curl  themselves 
around  the  lead  pencil,  and  before  they  had 
quite  grasped  it.  he  drew  the  pencil  out,  and 
the  leaves  rolled  back  to  their  original  posi- 
tion. And  he  laid  the  lead  pencil  down  on 
them  again,  and  they  responded  once  more, 
only  a  little  more  slowly  than  the  last  time; 
and  again,  just  before  they  had  clutched  the 
pencil,  he  drew   it  away,  and  the  leaves  a 

QO 


little  more  slowly  and  patiently  unfolded. 
And  he  did  it  a  third  time,  and  a  fourth 
time,  and  a  fifth  time,  and  a  sixth  time,  and 
each  time  those  little  tendrils  responded, 
but  each  time  more  slowly  than  the  last  time. 
And  the  last  time  they  stood  absolutely  un- 
responsive, and  did  not  try  to  fold  them- 
selves around  it  at  all.  Oh,  men,  I  beseech 
you  not  to  trifle  with  your  hearts.  To-day, 
if  you  feel  Jesus  Christ  lying  on  them,  and 
the  tendrils  of  your  hearts  are  beginning  to 
wrap  around  Him,  don't  slip  away ;  let  them 
clutch  Him  now,  while  it  is  time. 

I  have  a  dear  friend  who  was  an  army 
chaplain,  and  he  told  me  an  old  war  story 
that  happened  within  his  own  knowledge  of 
a  family  down  in  Maine.  There  had  been 
six  boys,  and  five  of  them  were  shot  in  the 
war,  and  one  of  them,  the  only  lad  who  was 
left,  had  enlisted,  and  he  had  been  wounded 
on  a  Southern  battlefield,  and  he  was  going 
home  on  a  leave  of  absence.  The  surgeon 
told  him  he  might  never  get  home.  He 
said  he  would  like  to  try  anyhow,  and  he 
got  as  far  as  New  York,  and  he  was  pretty 
weak  there.  But  he  got  across  the  city  and 
took  a  train  for  Boston,  and  then  for  Maine. 
He  got  off  at  last  at  the  railroad  station 
that  was  nearest  his  father's  house.  It  was 
snowing — just  Christmas  time — and  he 
stood  for  a  little  time  in  the  railroad  station 
to  rest,  and  then  he  made  his  way  out 
through  the  storm  down  toward  his  father's 
home.  He  leaned  up  against  the  fence  now 
and  then  to  rest  himself  and  regain  his 
strength.  And  bye  and  bye  he  got  on  at 
last  to  the  little  gate  that  led  up  to 
his  father's  door.  He  saw  the  light  from 
the  great  open  fireplace,  and  he  could  see 
the  shadows  of  his  father  and  mother  on  the 
walls.  He  worked  his  way  half  way  up  the 
path  to  the  door,  and  he  felt  his  strength 
ebbing  away.  He  got  up  near  enough  just 
to  catch  the  sound  of  his  old  mother's  voice 
by  the  fireside,  and  then  he  fell  down  dead 
on  the  very  doorstep  of  his  home.  Oh,  it 
is  no  illustration  of  the  sinner  and  God. 
No  one  of  us  ever  got  to  the  threshold 
who  didn't  find  the  door  swung  wide  ajar, 
and  the  Father's  arms  wrapped  right  around 
our  hearts.  But,  friends,  how  do  you  know 
that  if  this  evening  you  do  not  go  in  you 
wnll  ever  want  to  go  in  again  ?  The  harvest 
may  be  past,  and  the  summer  be  ended.  I 
beseech  you  to-day,  "To-day  harden  not 
your  hearts.  Behold,  now  is  the  accepted 
time.  Now  is  the  day  of  salvation."  Now, 
while  the  doors  of  the  kingdom  stand  wide 
ajar,  and  the  Son  of  the  King  stands  in  the 
open  door  inviting  you  in.  Oh,  friends,  let 


us  get  up  as  one  man  and  go  in,  in  to  the 
King,  into  our  Father's  house.  Will  y-ou 
not  go  in  to-day?  Shaking  off  the  cow- 
ardice, the  littleness,  the  sin,  the  pettiness, 
the  paltriness  of  life,  and,  taking  Jesus 
Christ  by  the  hand,  come  home. 


3e$u$,  Saving  from  $in$, 

IRev.  Cbas.  %.  /ifoeaD. 

Matt.  1:21. 

"Cbou  sbalt  call  fjis  name  3e$u$,  for  l>e  shall  save  l^is  people 
from  their  sins." 

THE  oue  great  fact  of  this  world  is 
Sm. 
It  is  stamped  upon  all  human 
history  and  written  on  every  in- 
dividual life.  Its  baneful  effects 
are  evidenced  throughout  the  world,  and  it 
remains  for  the  religion  which  can  give  a 
sufficient  remedy  for  sin  to  become  the  tri- 
umphant religion  of  the  world.  If  we  look 
for  the  evidences  of  sin,  we  find  them 

1.  In  Human  Government.  Among  all 
the  governments  which  have  been  constitut- 
ed among  men  not  one  has  been  so  builded 
as  to  ignore  the  fact  of  sin.  Laws  are  en- 
acted and  penalties  enjoined  because  of  sin. 
The  prison  house  and  penitentiary  are  con- 
stant evidences  of  the  fact  that  men  sin. 
Our  legislatures  and  law-makers  acknowl- 
edge the  fact  that  men  sin  and  must  be  pun- 
ished.    If  we  turn  to 

2.  The  Religions  of  the  World,  we  find 
there  the  acknowledgment  of  the  fact 
of  sin.  Every  religion  which  appeals  to  the 
human  heart  deals  with  sin,  acknowledges 
its  baneful  presence  and  seeks  a  remedy. 
The  consciousness  of  condemnation  in  the 
human  heart  demands  a  remedy  of  some 
kind,  hence  every  religion  must  acknowledge 
and  deal  with  the  fact  of  sin. 

If  we  turn 

3.  To  Science,  we  find  there  the  admis- 
sion of  the  fact  of  sin.  She  recognizes  a 
vitiating  perverting  influence  in  nature. 
There  are  storms  in  the  air,  quakings  in  the 
earth,  tyranny  of  the  weak  by  the  strong, 
baffling  obstacles  in  the  stream  of  thought, 
all  of  which  reveal  the  presence  of  dark,  ob- 


Pastorofthe  First  M.  E.  Church,  Hoboken,  N. 

93 


stinate  and  often  unconquerable  foes ;  so 
that  the  best  men  can  do  gives  to  them  o>ily 
approximate  and  never  exacts  results.  Men- 
tal Philosophy  admits  the  ignorance  of  the 
intellect,  Moral  Philosophy,  the  perplexity 
of  the  passions,  while  Natural  Philosophy 
acknowledges  the  perverting  influences  of 
the  visible  world.  Thus  does  Science  confirm 
the  fact  that  something  is  amiss  in  this 
world  and  that  she  herself  is  seeking  to  set 
it  right. 

If  we  turn  to 

4.  The  Word  of  God,  we  find  that  Scrip- 
ture not  only  admits,  but  declares  the  fact 
of  sin.  Three  hundred  and  seven  times  the 
word  sin  describes  man's  condition  of  alien- 
ation from  God.  "Behold,"  said  the  Proph- 
et, "vour  sins  have  separated  vou  from  vour 
God.'" 

Paul  declares  that  all  men  have  sinned 
and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God.  Sin, 
then,  is  the  cause  of  man's  separation  from 
His  maker  and  his  failure,  and  is  universal 
in  its  sweep,  overwhelming  the  race. 

If  we  turn  to  the  story  of  the  Fall  in 
Genesis  we  find  that  whatever  construction 
we  may  put  upon  it  figuratively  that  it  is 
correct  philosophically. 

The  first  fact  we  meet  with  after  the  Fall 
is  the  fact  of  conscience. 

When  God  came  to  Adam  in  the  Garden, 
in  the  cool  of  the  day,  we  read  that  Adam 
hid  himself,  and  in  answer  to  God's  ques- 
tion "Where  art  thou  ?"  said :  "I  was  afraid 
and  I  went  and  hid  myself." 

That  is  the  cry  of  every  convicted  sinner 
and  fugitive  from  justice  to  this  hour,  every- 
where on  earth.  The  Conscience  Fund  in 
the  Police  Department  of  our  cities,  reveals 
that  men  are  conscious  of  their  sin,  and  seek 
relief  through  separation. 

The  second  fact  in  the  story  is  man's  con- 
sciousness that  his  was  a  destiny  of  toil  and 
labor. 

Here  begins  the  wasting,  wearing  exist- 
ence, the  presence  of  the  thorn  and  thistle, 
the  sweat  of  the  brow,  the  physical  agony  in 
human  life,  which  through  sin  when  it  is  fin- 
ished, bringeth  forth  death. 

The  third  fact  in  confirmation  of  the  story 
in  Genesis  is  found  in  the  curse  pronounced 
upon  Motherhood. 

For  Motherhood  is  the  sacred  tragedy  of 
life,  its  holiest  experience,  the  perpetual  re- 
newal of  heaven  coming  to  earth  in  the  little 
face  of  the  loving  child. 

Accepting  the  Biblical  idea  of  the  word 
sin  in  the  original,  i.  c.,  the  coming  short  of 
the  mark,  we  find  its  evidences  also 

5.  In  Individual  Experience.     We  have 

■    94 


sinned,  that  is,  we  have  come  short  of 
the  mark.  Look  at  your  individual  Hfe  as 
a  citizen !  Have  you  not,  some  time,  come 
short  in  your  duty  to  your  country?  or  as 
a  father  in  your  duty  to  your  family !  or 
as  a  created  child  of  God  in  vour  duty  to 
Him  ? 

The  indictment  becomes  terribly  and  se- 
verely true  that  all  have  sinned  and  come 
short  of  the  mark,  attaining  approximate 
and  never  exact  results. 

So  does  sin  become  to  us  the  one  stern 
damning  fact  of  this  world,  universal  in  its 
sweep  and  overwheming  in  its  power.  Hav- 
ing thus  established  the  fact  of  sin,  let  us 
look  for  a  remedy  from  its  terrible  power. 

How  can  man  get  rid  of  sin?  A  divine 
law  must  be  satisfied,  for  "sin  is  a  trans- 
gression of  the  law."  Atonement  must  be 
made,  for  "without  the  shedding  of  blood 
there  is  no  remission  of  sin."  Forgiveness 
must  be  granted,  and  sin  can  then  be  as  if 
it  had  never  been.  "Let  the  wicked  forsake 
his  way  ....  and  return  unto  our 
God,  for  He  will  abundantly  pardon." 

Men  seek  to  get  rid  of  sin. 

I.  Through  the  worship  of  Nature  man 
says,  "Nature  is  my'God;  I  will  seek  relief 
from  my  sin  through  Nature." 

So  Adam  sought  to  cover  his  nakedness 
by  making  an  apron  of  fig-leaves,  but  God 
said  to  him,  "You  cannot  cover  sin  that 
way,"  and  He  made  a  coat  of  skin  and 
clothed  him. 

Adam  took  leaves  from  an  unfeeling  tree. 
God  took  the  life  of  an  animal  to  cover  the 
naked  man.  "Sin  cannot  be  atoned  for  by 
any  mechanical  action.  Suffering  and  atone- 
ment must  always  follow.  From  the  be- 
ginning to  the  end  the  track  of  the  sinner 
is  marked  with  blood." 

Nature  makes  no  atonement  for  sin,  nor 
does  she  ever  forgive  the  sinner. 

Men  seek  relief  from  the  condemnation 
of  sin  through  morality.  They  trust  in 
morality  as  a  sufficient  remedy. 

The  rich  young  man  who  came  to  Christ 
believed  that  morality  should  be  sufficient, 
yet  revealed  in  his  question  the  fact  of  its 
failure  to  save  from  sin. 

For  morality  cannot  relieve  man  of  his 
past ;  it  can  form  his  future,  but  cannot  for- 
give his  past.  So  the  rich  young  man  went 
away  into  darkness,  sorrowfully,  with  the 
fatal  shortcomings  of  his  past,  for  morality 
never  forgives. 

]\Ien  look  also  to  Conscience  as  a 
sufficient  guide  to  lead  them  away 
from  their  sin.  They  say,  "If  I  live  up 
to  the  light   of  my   Conscience,   I   will   be 

95 


safe.  But  Conscience  never  satisfies  a  brok- 
en law  nor  offers  atonement  for  man.  Con- 
science recalls  in  vivid  fearful  outline  the 
sins  of  the  past,  but  Conscience  never  for- 
gives ;  and  when  man  has  found  that  all  his 
plans  and  schemes  are  futile,  he  turns  at 
last  to  see  how  God  deals  with  sin. 

The  text  declares  that  Jesus  came  to  save 
His  people  from  their  sins,  and  suggests  to 
us  that  Christ  was  born  into  this  world 
with  a  specific  relationship  to  sin. 

If  we  look  to  God  for  relief  from  our  sin, 
we  find  that  coincident  with  the  Fall,  God 
gave  man  hope  and  sounded  the  voice  of 
promise,  keeping  the  race  from  despair 
and  desolation. 

Down  the  centuries  as  they  ceaselessly 
pass  the  divine  purpose  runs,  and  the  divine 
promise  gleams  when  God  declared  that  the 
seed  of  the  woman  should  bruise  the  ser- 
pent's head.  A  redeemer  should  come,  who 
could  satisfy  a  divine  law,  make  atonement 
for  sin,  man  could  be  forgiven  his  iniquity 
and  his  transgressions  remembered  no  more. 
We  must  not  forget  that  when  man  sinned 
Satan  was  enthroned  as  the  god  of  this 
world ;  that  the  battle  for  the  mastery  of 
man  began ;  that  Satan,  acquainted  with  the 
divine  purpose,  would  defeat  God's  plan  if 
possible,  and  would,  by  the  very  attribute 
of  God's  justice,  hold  God  to  the  strict  con- 
ditions of  the  promise ;  for  God  could  not  be 
unjust  even  to  the  Devil. 

And  God  respected  the  conditions  of  the 
promise  made  in  His  dealings  with  Satan 
and  sin.     One  of  these  conditions  was 

1.  That  the  Redeemer  must  be  born  un- 
der the  full  force  of  the  broken  law,  and  be 
obedient  to  the  divine  command. 

He  must  be  tempted  as  Adam  was,  but  He 
must  stand  where  Adam  fell.  He  must 
have  an  ancestry  which  had  been  so  sinful 
as  to  have  broken  at  some  time,  somehow 
and  somewhere  the  entire  law  of  God. 
Hence,  it  is  possible  from  the  genealogy  in 
Matthew  to  discover  that  all  of  the  Ten 
Commandments  were  broken  by  the  ancestry 
of  the  Redeemer,  bringing  Him  under  the 
force  of  the  broken  law.  So  when  the  hu- 
man race  had  utterly  failed  and  had  broken 
the  law,  "in  the  fulness  of  time  God  sent 
forth  His  Son,  made  of  a  woman,  made 
wider  the  law,  to  redeem  them  that  were 
under  the  law  that  we  might  become  the 
sons  of  God."  God  met  perfectly  this  con- 
dition of  His  promise. 

Another  condition  was  this : 

2.  That  the  Redeemer  of  the  race  must 
be  born  of  woman.  It  was  the  seed  of  the 
woman,  not  the  man,  which,  according  to 

96 


the    promise,    was    to    bruise    the    serpent's 
head. 

Christ  must  have  an  earthly  mother. 
Both  Matthew  and  Luke  record  how  per- 
fectly God  met  this  condition.  We  repeat 
in  the  Apostles'  Creed  that  Christ  was  be- 
gotten by  the  Holy  Ghost,  born  of  the  Vir- 
g'in  Mary,  and  Christ,  as  the  only  begotten 
Son  of  God,  was  made  of  a  wovian,  as  well 
as  made  under  the  law,  that  we  might  be 
redeemed  from  our  sin  through  the  sacrifice 
of  Himself. 

Still  another  condition  which  must  be 
met  was  this : 

3.  That  He  must  represent  all  classes 
of  the  human  race,  the  highest  as  well  as  tho 
lowest,  the  poor  as  well  as  the  rich.  His 
life  must  have  blended  in  it  toil,  labor,  fa- 
tigue, disappointment,  pain  and  death.  He 
must  be  made  perfect  through  suffering  that 
He  might  bring  many  sons  unto  glory.  He 
must  die  for  the  sins  of  the  people  that  the 
divine  law  could  be  upheld  and  the  sinner 
forgiven.  So  when  I  study  His  companions 
around  His  cradle,  and  there  see  the  ex- 
tremes of  society  worshipping  the  young 
child ;  when  I  look  at  His  cross  and  see 
there  the  nations  of  the  earth  acknowledging 
His  Kingship,  I  feel  that  in  His  life  and 
death  He  has  met  perfectly  the  conditions 
which  sin  created  and  made  possible  man's 
forgiveness  with  God. 

Thus  it  is  that  God  removes  sin  by  giving 
His  only  begotten  Son  as  a  sacrifice  for 
sin  and  forgiving  the  sinner.  Thus  Jesus 
saves  His  people  from  their  sins  by  the 
sacrifice  of  Himself;  for  "He  died  the  just 
for  the  unjust  that  He  might  bring  us  to 
God." 

In  a  little  town  in  the  northern  part  of 
Germany  there  lived  a  widow  with  a  large 
family.  Hunger  and  privation  pressed 
harder  and  harder  upon  the  widow's  purse 
until  the  eldest  daughter,  an  accomplished 
musician,  felt  that  she  must  aid  her  mother 
in  bearing  the  heavy  burden  of  family  sup- 
port. She  conceived  the  idea  of  giving  a 
musicale  in  a  distant  city  where  her  friends 
resided. 

She  drew  up  her  "Prospectus,"  and  in  a 
fateful  moment  of  temptation  placed  upon 
the  announcement  a  lie,  stating  that  she 
was  the  pupil  of  Abbe  Liszt. 

She  was  not  nor  had  she  ever  been  a 
pupil  of  the  great  master.  The  day  arrived 
for  the  recital.  She  went  to  the  city,  sought 
out  the  best  hotel,  and  there  on  the  register 
above  her  name  was  the  name  of  the  master 
himself.  There  on  the  bulletin  was  her 
"prospectus"    with    its   horrible   lie.      Con- 

97 


science-stricken,  she  resolved  tJiat  she  would 
i;o  to  the  master,  tell  him  of  her  wearied 
mother  and  the  hungry  children  in  her  little 
home,  confess  her  sin,  then  as  quietly  as 
possible  leave  the  city  and  go  back  to  her 
home  hopeless  and  despairing. 

She  sought  his  room,  timidly  knocked  on 
the  door,  and  when  his  kindly  voice  an- 
swered "Come  in,"  she  threw  herself  at  his 
feet,  sobbed  out  her  pitiful  story,  and  asked 
his  forgiveness.  He  gently  lifted  her  up 
and  said :  "I  have  been  composing  a  nev\^ 
piece  to-day  and  would  like  to  hear  how  it 
sounds.  Will  you  come  and  play  it  for  me?*' 
She  sat  down  at  the  piano,  and  when  she 
touched  the  keys  the  master  saw  that  his 
successor  had  come.  He  made  a  suggestion 
here,  a  little  correction  there,  and  then  said: 
"Now,  my  dear  child,  I  have  given  you  your 
first  lesson  and  you  are  my  pupil  now ;  so 
go  down  and  place  upon  the  bulletin  that 
the  master  is  in  town  and  will  play  the  last 
number  on  the  program,  for  you  are  freely 
forgiven." 

So  when  I  came  to  the  Master  a  guilty 
sinner  and  fell  prostrate  at  His  feet,  He 
lifted  me  up,  forgave  my  sin,  made  it  as  if 
it  had  never  been,  and  remembers  it  no 
more. 

And  when  I  see  Jesus  standing  and  reach- 
ing out  with  pitying  hands  toward  a  re- 
pentant sinner,  and  saying,  "Son,  be  of 
good  cheer ;  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee." 
When  I  see  His  tenderness  toward  a  sinful 
woman  and  hear  Him  say,  "Thy  sins,  which 
are  many,  are  all  forgiven  thee !  Go  and 
sin  no  more,"  I  feel  that  He  is  able  to  save 
to  the  uttermost  all  who  come  unto  God  by 
Him. 

With  a  confidence  that  is  absolute  and  a 
conviction  that  is  unwavering,  I  point  you 
to  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Saviour  from  sin. 

He  will  take  thy  guilty  soul,  and,  with  the 
crimson  tide  which  streams  from  ?Iis,  own 
heart,  will  roll  back  the  tide  of  sin,  sweep- 
ing thee  on  to  ruin  and  death  and  pour  in 
the  tides  of  life  and  immortality.  And  when 
death  shall  smite  thy  mortal  frame,  stand- 
ing beside  thy  trembling  soul,  holding  in 
His  hand  thy  feeble  fingers,  He  will  stoop 
down  and  whisper  to  thy  fainting  heart. 
"Because  I  live  ye  shall  live  also,"  and  will 
guide  thee  to  a  blessed  immortalitv. 


the  Desert  ana  the  Garden. 

IRev.  (3.  Campbell  /iRorgan, 

OLonOon,  jEnglanD. 

Isaiah  Iv :  7. 

"Cet  the  wicked  forsake  his  way,  and  the  unrighteous  man  his 
thoughts;  and  let  him  return  unto  the  Cord,  and  Re  will 
have  mercy  upon  him :  and  to  our  God,  for  Re  will  abund- 
antly pardon." 

BY  a  coincidence  of  arrangement  this 
is  the  central  verse  of  the  chapter. 
I  put  it  that  way  because  the  chap- 
ters and  verses  are  usually  a  hin- 
drance to   reading  the   Scriptures. 
There  are  six  verses  before  this  one,  and 
six  following  it,  and  it  is  the  dividing  line 
between  descriptions  of  two  conditions  of 


life — the  description  of  one  condition  in  the 
first  six  verses,  and  that  of  another  in  the 
second  six. 

Ill  the  first  part  of  the  chapter  you  have 
a  picture  of  a  man  away  from  God.  In  the 
last  half  you  have  a  picture  of  a  man  in 
fellowship  with  God;  and  if  you  ask  me 
how  a  man  can  go  from  the  first  half  into 

Late  Pastor  of  New  Court  Chapel,  London,  England. 

99 


the  second  half,  the  answer  is  that  he  must 
go  through  tlie  seventh  verse,  and  no  man 
passes  from  the  first  into  the  second  except 
through  that  gateway. 

Let  us  refresh  our  memories.  If  we 
glance  at  the  first  part  we  find  such  ex- 
pressions as  these:  "Everyone  that  thirst- 
eth:"'  "he  that  hath  no  money:"  "ye  spend 
money"  (not  contradictory  of  the  last  one 
.IS  1  will  show  later)  for  that  which  is  not 
hread :  "your  labor :"  "satisfieth  not." 
Those  expressions  describe  a  condition 
which  we  shall  do  well  to  look  at.  Thirsty 
— without  mone}- — spending  money  for 
what  is  not  bread — hard  at  work — never 
satisfied. 

Jumping  to  the  other  end  of  the  chapter 
we  can  see  the  counterpart  points  of  that 
half:  "go  out  with  joy;"  "led  forth  with 
peace ;"  "the  mountains  shall  break  forth 
into  singing,  and  all  the  trees  of  the  field 
shall  clap  their  hands ;"  "instead  of  the 
thorn,  the  fir  tree;"  "instead  of  the  brier, 
the  myrtle  tree." 

It  needs  no  argument  to  show  that  a 
direct  contrast  is  presented  by  the  two  ends 
of  the  chapter.  At  one  end  is  set  forth 
drudgery  and  degradation — at  the  other, 
joy  and  peace,  singing  and  clapping  of 
hands.  In  the  first  half  are  thirst,  hunger, 
hard  work,  no  rest;  in  the  second,  joy,  peace 
and  gladness. 

Now,  what  are  these  conditions  ?  Who 
is  speaking?  The  speaker  is  God's  prophet 
and  he  is  addressing  God's  own  people.  It 
is  not  a  warning  by  the  prophet  to  an  out- 
side nation,  and  this  is  perhaps  a  startling 
fact.  Many  people  consider  this  text  as  a 
Gospel  message  to  the  unsaved,  and  so  it 
is ;  but  it  is  a  double-edged  sword,  and  is 
meant  for  saints  as  well  as  sinners.  In  any 
case  its  first  call  is  to  the  man  who  has  gone 
away  from  God. 

It  was  probably  uttered  to  the  Jews  while 
captive  in  Babylon.  They  had  inherited  a 
spiritual  birthright  from  their  fathers.  They 
had  been  brought  up  in  an  atmosphere  of 
knowledge  of  the  law  of  God,  but  for  their 
own  sins  had  been  sold  into  captivity. 

This  is  the  Scripture  picture  of  their 
condition.  They  had  gone  away  down  and 
had  become  tainted  with  the  commercial 
spirit  of  Babylon.  The  i)rophet  says  to 
them.  You  are  a  thirsty  people  whose  thirst 
can't  be  quenched,  and  the  money  you  are 
making  cannot  buy  you  any  water  that  will 
(luench  it.  Your  spirits  long  for  the  land  of 
rocks  and  mountains  and  trees  and  hills ; 
in  fact,  your  souls  cry  out  after  God.  You 
buy    bread    that    does   not   strengthen   you, 


you  are  always  at  work,  and  you  are  never 
satisfied. 

That  is  a  perfectly  correct  picture  of  hu- 
man life  apart  from  God.  A  Godless  life 
is  a  dissatisfied  life,  is  a  thirsty  life ;  and  you 
may  make  all  the  money  you  like  but  it  will 
never  buy  the  living  water.  A  man  without, 
God  is  always  thirsty  and  hungry,  he  spends 
his  money  for  what  is  not  bread,  and  he  has 
no  rest. 

All  the  unrest  of  the  world  at  this  mo- 
ment— political,  social  and  individual — is 
due  to  one  fact  and  one  only — that  man  has 
got  away  from  God.  If  you  could  bring 
the  whole  race  back  to  the  heart  of  God 
and  to  His  love  and  to  His  law  all  the  prob- 
lems that  now  vex  humanity  would  be  im- 
mediately solved.  All  woe,  misery  and 
suffering  would  cease  if  men  could  be  got 
back  to  God. 

The  Godless  man  is  never  satisfied.  He 
never  says  "I  have  enough."  He  devotes 
himself  to  attempting  to  feed  immortality 
with  mortality  ;  that  part  of  his  nature  which 
belongs  to  eternity  with  the  fleeting  things 
of  time ;  the  subtle  intangible  soul  with  the 
material  dust  and  ashes  of  the  world  which 
pass  away  even  while  he  tries  to  hold  them. 
Thank  God  ^  for  the  feverish  unrest  that 
possesses  the*  soul  of  the  Godless  man  ! 

The  prophet  tries  to  woo  his  people  back 
to  God  by  showing  them  a  very  strong  con- 
trast. He  says  to  them :  You  are  in  Baby- 
lon there — on  that  flat,  dry  waste  where 
you  have  no  mountains  or  hills.  (The  New 
Englander  or  anyone  else  who  has  been 
raised  in  a  hilly  or  mountainous  countrv 
feels  pretty  lonesome  if  he  finds  himself  out 
on  the  prairies.)  You  belong  to  a  land  of 
hills  and  trees  and  rivers,  but  you  are  down 
there  on  the  flat  dead  level  of  Babylon, 
'true,  you  are  in  a  great  city,  but  what  are 
cities  compared  with  mountains  and  trees 
and  hils  ?  You  are  making  money,  but  that 
Duys  nothing  but  dust. 

You  see  the  spiritual  value  of  the  pas- 
sage? The  nation  had  lost  its  sense  of  God 
everywhere ;  it  had  lost  communion  with 
God ;  had  lost  everything,  indeed,  worth 
having.  He  wants  to  say  to  them :  "When 
you  get  back  from  the  Desert  of  Babylon  to 
the  Garden  of  God,  you  will  get  back  to 
i\ature  as  well  as  to  Nature's  God." 

I  wonder  how  long  it  is  since  some  of 
you  business  men  heard  a  mountain  sing. 
That  is  worth  thinking  about.  How  long 
since  you  heard  the  trees  clap  their  hands?' 
You  say,  it's  a  long  time.  When  I  was  a 
lad  I  used  to  think  when  the  breeze  moved 
in  the  trees  that  they  clapped  their  hands. 


but  that  is  many  years  ago !  I  shoulc|^  be 
very  glad  to  push  you  back  again  if  I  could, 
to  niake  you  backslide  into  your  boyhood 
again.  Did  not  the  Master  Himself  say, 
■'Except  ye  be  converted  and  become  as 
little  children,  ye  shall  in  nowise  enter  into 
the  Kingdom  of  Goci  r" 

How  is  it  you  have  not  heard  the  moun- 
tains sing?  Because  you  have  been  money- 
grubbing  in  this  Babylon.  You  have  been 
trying  to  feed  your  immortal  soul  with  the 
bread  that  perishes.     You  can't  do  it. 

When  a  man  gets  back  to  God  he'll  hear 
the  mountains  sing ;  and  I  am  now  on  the 
dead  level  of  fact ;  not  speaking  in  a  figure 
at  all.  You  have  lost  Nature  because  you 
have  lost  God. 

No  man  ever  found  God  in  Nature — not 
the  God  that  demands  .worship.  He  may 
find  the  God  who  demands  his  fear,  or  rev- 
erence, but  not  the  God  who  draws  his  heart 
out.  When  you  find  God  in  Girist,  in  the 
heart-beat  of  the  Son  of  Man.  then  vou  find 
Him. 

When  you  get  back  through  the  gate  that 
opens  into  everything  worth  having  in  life 
you  will  get  the  flowers,  and  God  in  the 
flowers;  fhe  mountain,  and  God  on  the 
mountain ;  the  sea,  and  Him  who  said  to  the 
mighty  ocean,  "Thus  far  shalt  thou  come, 
and  no  farther !" 

The  spiritual  value  and  the  spiritual  ver- 
ity of  this  chapter  is  based  on  that  thought. 
Man  finds  his  peace  and  joy  when  he  finds 
God.  When  he  gets  back  to  God  he  is  at 
the  place  of  rest,  the  place  of  the  living 
bread  and  the  living  water  which  will  satis- 
fy all  his  needs. 

Thirsty  ones  of  Babylon,  there,  is  living 
water  in  the  Garden  of  C^od !  Hungry  ones 
of  Babylon,  the  Bread  of  Heaven-  is  in  the 
Garden  of  God !  You  who  have  no  satis- 
faction in  Babylon,  your  heart  can  find  rest 
in  the  Garden  of  God ! 

You  who  have  no  music  in  Babylon  can 
liave  all  the  music  of  the  Garden  of  God ! 

Where  are  you  living?  We  are  all  living 
either  in  Babylon  or  in  the  Garden  of  God. 

Where  are  you  living?  Are  you  living  in 
the  Desert  or  in  the  Garden  of  songs  and  of 
living  water?  Is  your  heart  at  rest  or  is  it 
troubled?  Are  you  thirsty  or  has  your 
thirst  been  quenched?  Are  you  hungry  or 
have  you  been  fed?  Are  y(->u  in  the  Desert 
or  in  the  Garden?    That  is  the  question. 

You  say  you  are  not  quite  sure.  Then 
you  are  certainly  in  the  Desert ;  for  every 
man  in  the  Garden  of  God  is  dead  positive 
about  it.  The  Church  of  God  is  crowded 
u])  with  people  who  are  not  sm-e.    Some  "be- 


lieve"  they  have  crossed  into  the  Garden; 
but  when  a  man  is  Hving-  with  God,  do  you 
think  he  does  not  know  it  for  a  certainty  ? 

This  congregation  can  be  divided  into 
tliose  who  are  in  the  Desert  and  those  who 
are  in  the  Garden  of  God.  I  want  to  talk 
to  the  people  of  the  Desert. 

If  you  spoke  the  truth  you  would  say :  I 
am  not  at  rest ;  my  sins,  my  passions,  my 
evil  forces  are  against  me.  Do  you  want  to 
be  right  ?  Are  you  asking :  How  can  I  get 
out  of  the  Desert? 

Hear  your  answer :  ''Let  the  wicked  for- 
sake his  way,  and  the  unrighteous  man  his 
thoughts ;  and  let  him  return  unto  the  Lord, 
and  He  will  have  mercy  upon  him :  and  to 
our  God  and  He  will  abundantly  pardon." 

This  text  has  two  parts  to  it.  The  first 
half  shows  the  conditions  that  man  has  to 
fulfil,  and  the  second  half  gives  the  promises 
that  God  will  fulfil. 

What  is  man's  part?  "Let  the  wicked 
forsake  his  way  and  the  unrighteous  man 
his  thoughts :  and  let  him  return  unto  the 
Lord." 

That  is  your  business.     Nothing  else. 

What  is  God's  half?  "He  will  have 
mercy  upon  him  *  *  *  our  God  *  *  *  will 
abundantly  pardon."     Get  that  clear. 

Let  us,  for  the  moment,  put  the  second 
half  on  one  side.  Let  us  say,  as  a  messen- 
ger of  Christ,  that  if  at  any  moment  any 
person  here  will  fulfil  the  conditions,  God 
will  fulfil  His  promise  without  delay.  God 
never  waits  any  longer  than  man  keeps  Him 
waiting.  God  is  waiting  now  to  be  merci- 
ful. Let  no  man  make  the  mistake  of  wait- 
ing for  God  to  forgive  him.  Obey  the  com- 
mand, and  quicker  than  any  lightning  flash 
shall  mercy  come.  When  there  is  delay  it 
is  with  us  and  not  with  my  Master.  And 
that  leads  me  to  the  heart  of  the  message. 

What  am  I  to  do  that  God  may  fulfil  His 
promise?  "Let  the  wicked  forsake  his  way, 
and  the  unrighteous  man  his  thoughts :  and 
let  him  return  unto  the  Lord." 

How  many  things  are  you  to  do  ?  Three  ? 
Yes,  and  no.  There  are  three  things  named, 
but  they  are  different  statements  of  one 
thing  only. 

What  is  that  one  thing?  "Returning  un- 
to the  Lord,"  the  prophet  said,  but  he  led  up 
to  it  by  showing  the  way. 

1.  Let  the  wicked  forsake  his  way  (put- 
ting the  emphasis  on  the  last  word)  : 

2.  Forsake  his  thoughts  : 

3.  Return  to  the  Lord. 

Now  the  prophet  began  with  the  external 
facts  of  life.    The  Hebrew  word  for  "way" 
means   a   beaten    track,    a    roadway.      You 
103 


must  forsake  the  way  you  are  traveling  in, 
and  go  another  way. 

How  can  the  wicked  forsake  his  way? 
There  is  only  one  way  to  do  it— -by  forsak- 
ing his  thoughts. 

I  want  to  say  a  word  about  "thoughts." 
You  say,  "I  can't  help  my  thoughts."  You 
are  not  told  to  forsake  thoughts.  The  He- 
brew word  conveys  the  idea  of  weaving — 
something  that  has  a  warp  and  woof — a 
plan,  a  conception.  If  they  are  possessed  of 
their  reason,  men  never  do  anything  without 
thinking  first  about  achieving  certain  re- 
sults :  they  make  their  outward  experience 
out  of  their  inward  ideas. 

There  is  no  one  here  that  has  not,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  deep  down  in  his 
thoughts  some  conception  of  life,  and  every 
one  of  you  is  living  his  or  her  life  on  the 
basis  of  that  conception  as  to  what  life  is. 

One  man's  conception  is  that  life  gives 
him  the  chance  to  enjoy  himself;  another, 
that  it  is  his  opportunity  to  make  a  great 
name  for  himself,  and  so  on. 

Now  that  "thought"  that  underlies  all 
your  life  is  what  you  have  to  give  up.  What 
you  have  to  give  up  is  the  heart's  false  idea, 
the  internal  blasphemy.  You  have  to  give 
up  your  conception  of  life — your  thought — 
and  take  God's.  Your  way  of  living  is  not 
His,  and  your  thoughts  not  His  thoughts. 

H  you  read  your  Bible  carefully  you  will 
see  the  reason :  "My  thoughts  are  not  your 
thoughts,  neither  are  your  ways  My  ways, 
saith  the  Lord."  The  period  there  in  the 
King  James  version  has  made  people  think 
that  a  new  subject  is  then  begun,  but  the 
fact  is  tliat  the  the  reason  immediately  fol- 
lows— "for  as  the  heavens  are  higher  than 
the  earth,  so  are  My  ways  higher  than  yoiu" 
ways,  and  My  thoughls  than  your 
thoughts." 

The  reason  why  you  are  to  abandon  vour 
thoughts  and  take  God's  is  because  His  wav 
for  you  is  as  high  as  Heaven,  and  you  have 
been  trying  to  satisfy  your  soul  down  on  the 
earth.  God's  thought  for  you  includes  the 
eternals,  while  your  thought  for  yourself  is 
bounded  by  the  dust  of  to-day.  His  tliought 
reaches  up  to  eternal  life  for  yon;  your 
thought  is  all  on  the  earth  and  bounded  by 
I'arthly  conditions.  You  are  trying  to  de- 
grade your  soul  to  the  level  of  the  earth, 
while  lie  wants  to  lift  it  to  the  level  of 
I  leaven. 

You  say :  "That  is  a  stern  Gospel?"  1  f  it 
is,  it  has  the  sternness  of  love,  and  don't 
you  know  that  there  is  no  sternness  like  the 
sternness  of  love  ? 

1   once  saw  a  mother  become  a  veritable 


fury  on  account  of  her  love  for  her  chiKi. 
It  was  during  my  first  charge. 

There  was  a  level  railroad  crossing  in  the 
town.  One  day  a  sweet  little  child,  about 
seven  years  old,  dimple-fisted  and  golden- 
haired,^  strayed  on  to  the  track  at  this  cross- 
ing. An  express  train  running  to  London 
at"  the  rate  of  sixty  miles  an  hour  was  ap- 
proaching. The  mother  saw  the  child's 
peril.  She  rushed  to  her  rescue,  seized  hold 
of  her  as  she  had  never  seized  her  before, 
and  almost  hurled  the  child  off  the  track. 
The  child  was  frightened  at  the  mother's 
rough  grasp  and  screamed  with  terror ;  but 
it  was  love  that  drove  the  mother  up  to  the 
apparent  cruelty  in  her  determination  to 
save  the  child's  life. 

Clod's  love  is  sincere.  I  bring  you  news 
beaming  with  sincerity.  You  must  quit 
\our  way,  your  thought,  and  get  back  to 
God,  even  if  you  are  crucified  in  the  pro- 
cess. Only  that  way  will  take  you  out  of 
the  Desert  and  into  the  Garden. 

Some  one  says,  "Suppose  I  do  that — that 
T  deliberately  give  up  my  thought  for  His 
thought,  my  way  for  His  way,  and  go  back 
to  Him,  how  am  I  to  know?  What  will 
He  do  when  I  come?" 

"He  will  have  mercy ;  He  will  abundantly 
pardon." 

"Is  there  anything  else?" 

"Nothing  else." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  this  can  hap- 
pen this  moment?  I  didn't  come  in  here  in- 
tending to  go  into  any  such  a  serious  mat- 
ter as  this.  I  only  turned  in  with  the  rest 
of  the  people.  If,  sitting  here,  I  turn  back 
to .  Him,  as  you  say,  will  He  pardon  me 
without  any  period  of  probation?" 

"He  will." 

"I  can't  believe  it." 

Why  not?  Are  you  saying  in  your  heart 
what  a  man  once  said  to  me?  He  was  a 
Yorkshire  collier — a  hard-headed,  intelli- 
gent specimen  of  humanity.  As  I  spoke  to 
him  in  an  after-meeting,  he  said.  "I  can't 
believe  that  Gospel." 

I  asked,  "Why  not?" 

It  is  too  cheap! 

I  could  not  help  feeling  some  admiratioti 
for  the  man's  thinking  deep  enough  into  the 
subject  to  say  that :  still  he  was  wrong. 

"Do  you  say  that  if  I  return  to  the  Lord 
He  will  forgive  all  my  sins  and  blot  out-  the 
whole  thing?"  he  asked. 

"Yes." 

"Excuse  me  for  saying  it  in  my  own  way, 
but  that  is  too  easy." 

I  said  to  him,  "Have  you  been  to  work 
to-day  ?" 

105 


A  little  startled,  he  said,  "Yes,  certaii^ly.*' 

"Were  vou  down  in  the  pit  to-dav?" 

"Yes."  " 

"How  did  you  get  home?"' 

"I  walked  home;  what  do  you  mean?" 

"How  did  you  get  out  of  the  pit  and  on  to 
the  road?  You  were  down  some  five  hun- 
dred yards  under  ground;  how  did  you  get 
up  ?" 

"As  I  always  do;  up  the  shaft  in  the 
cage." 

"How  much  did  you  pay?" 

"Nothing"   (with  an  astonished  look). 

"How  did  you  trust  yourself  in  the  cage 
to  come  up  the  shaft?     It  was  so  cheap." 

"I  did  not  pay  anything,  but  it  cost  the 
company  a  great  deal  of  money  to  sink  the 
shaft  and  put  the  machinery  in  place  for 
the  working  of  the  cage." 

"Did  you  ever  think  what  it  cost  God  to 
write  that  verse  in  Jsaiah  for  you,  'He  will 
have  mercy'  ?" 

It  is  not  cheap.  Do  you  know  the  cost 
set  forth  in  that  verse — "for  God  so  loved 
the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten 
Son  that  whosoever  believeth  on  Him  should 
not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life?"  I 
can't  fathom  that — I  cannot  tell  what  it 
means ;  but  that  is  what  it  cost  God  to  give 
vou  mercy.  You  want  to  get  into  the  Gar- 
den, go  through  the  wicket  gate.  Turn  back 
from  your  sins,  your  thought,  your  self- 
centered  life,  and'  put  your  hand  on  the 
wicket. 

"It  is  too  easy?"  That  gate  is  hinged  to 
the  Cross  of  Calvary,  and  you  will  never 
know  what  it  did  cost  till  you  have  fath- 
omed the  depth  of  the  agony  of  the  Son  of 
His  love.  He  ivill  have  mercy.  In  the  cost 
was  included  the  forsaking  of  the  Son  of 
His  love,  and  in  this  way  only  -could  He 
l)c  just,  and  the  justifier  of  him  who  be- 
lieveth. 

Some  one  says:  "I  am  not  interested  in 
this  thing  at  all." 

I  have  no  other  message  for  you.  I  can 
only  pray  for  you.  If  you  are  content  with 
the  dust  and  will  live  in  the  dust,  I  have  no 
other  word  for  you. 

But  some  one  else  says:  "I  am  interest- 
ed, but  I  cannot  quit  my  way."  Then  you 
can't  get  into  the  (iarden  ni  God.  I  have 
no  authority  to  tell  you  of  any  other  way. 
I*.ut-  I  say  that  God,  knowing  all  your  past 
liistnry.  all  Ihe  inwardness  of  your  deprav- 
ity and  all  the  evil  of  your  nature,  loves  you, 
and  if  you  will  turn  from  your  way  He  will 
have  mercy. 

He  is  waiting  now  to  "abundantly  par- 
d(-)n,"  but  He  cannot  do  it  till  you  return  to 
1 06 


Him.  He  waits  for  the  wicked  to  forsake 
liis  way,  for  the  return  of  the  sinner  to  him- 
self; and  then — and  not  till  then — will  He 
save.  If  you  love  your  sin  and  refuse  to 
o'ive  it  up,  I  have  no  warrant  to  offer  you  a 
pardon. 

Yet  another  says:  "I  am  interested.  I 
am  tired  and  sick  of  sin.  I  am  in  dead  earn- 
est about  the  matter,  and  am  ready  to  leave 
my  way,  but  it  is  difficult  for  me  to  be- 
lieve." 

Don't  tell  me  that  it  is  difficult  to  believe. 
Tell  God.  Say  to  Him,  Oh,  God,  I  can't 
believe  what  Thou  dost  say !  I  never  met 
a  man  yet  who  could  do  that.  I  always  find 
that  when  you  can  get  a  man  away  from 
talking  to  man  to  talk  to  God,  he  cannot  say 
very  much  about  unbelief. 

Don't  say  that  you  will  try  to  believe. 
In  Chicago,  during  some  meetings,  I  had 
a  certain  Bible  that  my  mother  gave  me 
when  I  was  twenty-one.  In  dealing  with  a 
young  man  he  made  a  remark  of  that  kind 
to  me.  I  said,  "You  see  this  Bible;  my 
mother  gave  "it  to  me  on  my  twenty-first 
birthday ;  why  don't  you  say  you  will  try 
and  believe  me  when  I  say  that?" 

'T  would  not  be  so  rude,  sir.  I  do  believe 
you." 

'.'Then  would  you  be  more  rude  to  God 
than  you  would  be  to  me?  If  not,  then  go 
and  tell  Him  you  believe  Him." 

If  you  are  going  to  take  Him  at  His  word 
now  say  to  God,  "I  forsake  my  way,  I  aban- 
don my  thoughts,  I  turn  to  Thee !" 

Then  He  does  have  mercy :  He  does 
abundantly  pardon,  and  you  can  sing : 

Oh,  happy  day  that  fixed  my  choice 
On  Thee,  my  Saviour  and  my  God : 

Weil  may  this  glowing  heart   rejoice 
And  tell  its  rapture  all  abroad. 

'Tis  done  !  the  great  transaction's  done ! 

I  am  my  Lord's  and  He  is  mine ! 
He  drew  me  and  I  followed  on. 

Charmed  to  confess  the  voice  divine  ! 

That's  faith ! 
Let  us  pray ! 


4WWHH^ 


TENT    EVANGEL. 


Superintendent, 
Rev.  S.  HARTWELL  PRATT. 

Missionary, 
WARREN  O.  BARNES. 

Soloist, 
Miss  FLORENCE  LOYNES. 

Treasurer, 
HARVEY  D.  BLAKESLEE, 

Calvary  Baptist  Church. 

Assistant  Treasurer, 
SILAS    H.    BERRY, 

West  End  Presbyterian  Church. 


ADVISORY  COMMITTEE. 

WILLIAM  A.  TUCKER,  WILLIAM  M.    BEEKMAN,  1r. 

5th  Av.  Presbyttrian  Church.  .Madison  Av.  Kef.  Church. 

T.  B.  FREESE.  B.  SHERWOOD  DUNN, 

Hanson  Place  Baptist  Church.  Madison  Av  Baptist  Church 

WILSON  LEE  CANNON,  Jr.,  EDWIN  M.  BLISS, 

St.  Paul  M.  E.    Church.  Broadway  Tabernacle. 

ALEX    C.   EADIE, 

Central  Presbyterian  Church. 


4H)?4WW^ 


EVANGELIvST. 

IRcv.  $.  Ibartwell  pratt, 

Superintendent  of  Tent  Evangel. 

MR.  PRATT  inaugurated  Tent  work  in  the 
City  of  Taiinton,  Mass.,  June  3d,  1879, 
afterwards  holding  meetings  at  Holyoke 
and  Westfield.  The  next  year  he  held  Tent  ser- 
vices in  Westerly,  R.  I..,  and  Saratoga  Springs. 
In  1881  the  Tent  was  pitched  in  New  York  City, 
on  Second  Avenue,  corner  of  Twentieth  Street' 
and  for  three  seasons  services  were  held — 1881, 
1882  and  18S3 — and  at  the  corner  of  Broadway 
and  Fifty-fifth  Street  in  1884.  In  1885  a  long 
series  of  meetings  was  held  in  Pittsfield,  Mass. 
Mr.  D.  L.  Moody  became  so  interested  in  the 
reports  of  the  Tent  work  that  at  the  close  of  the 
Pittsfield  meetings  he  invited  Mr.  Pratt  to  come 
with  his  Tent  to  Northfield  during  the  August 
Conference.  The  Tent  was  pitched  -on  the  Semi- 
nary grounds,  and  was  used  as  an  "  Object 
Lesson."  Addresses  were  made  from  the  plat- 
form, and  Mr.  Moody  inquired  very  carefully 
into  the  methods  and  results  of  the  work.  The 
next  year  Mr.  Moody  opened  a  number  of  Tents 
in  Chicago.  During  ths  years  1899  and  1900  the 
Tent  was  pitched  at  Broadway  and  Fifty-sixth 
Street.  The  series  of  meetings  each  season  con- 
tinuing sixteen  weeks.  This  year,  1902,  the  Tent 
was  opened  May  25th,  and  meetings  were  held 
for  twenty    weeks. 

"  Mr.  Pratt's  Tent  Meetings  in  New  York 
inspired  Mr.  John  Converse  of  PKiladel- 
phia  to  inaugurate  Tent  meetings  in  that 

city."— Rev.  J.  F.  Carson,  1).  I).,  ruKtor  of 
the  Central  Presbyterian  Church,  Brooklyn, 
N.   Y. 


'(^^>!^' 


